


With You

by bigstupidjellyfish



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: (so slow you won't even know probably), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Slow Build, Torture, Trust Issues, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-18 13:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5929752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigstupidjellyfish/pseuds/bigstupidjellyfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jailbreak AU taking place during war in Grindcore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Grindcore AU born from conversations with Sonntam. Getaway gets caught and transferred to Grindcore and meets Skids, whose fate in this prison camp was very deliberately interpreted from #49.

"What do we have here?"

"A nobody."

"Specifications."

"Uh. Scout. Was messing with our comunications relays in Ampera system. Like I said, a nobody."

"How effectively?"

"Huh?"

"How effectively has he messed with them?"

"Well, I- Lemme look at the report... Huh. Pretty effectively, it seems."

"Give me the report."

Skids took out the datapad from the guard's hands. His optics scanned the text briefly, annoyance showing in his scowl.

The bot sprawled on the slab fedgeted in restraints, displayed on a monitor. According to the report from the Ampera system he managed to cause a complete communications blackout in the entire sector. Skids glanced once again at the prisoner, unwilling to connect this regular soldier like the ones autobots were throwing onto frontlines with what he supposedly did. This - indeed - nobody wasn't supposed to infiltrate a decepticon-controlled system so easily.

Skids supperssed the urge to vent his annoyance at the unattentive guard who hadn't bothered to even read the reports properly. Figuring which prisoners were to go straight into smelting pools or just labor and which were to go through interrogations was his job, after all.

"He could have had a team. Or someone on this side to help him out," Skids pointed out, still. The guard stole a look at Skids, noticing his slip, and Skids winced internally. This side. Not "our" side. The empty space on his chestplate where his badge used to be felt a little raw, again.

"Prepare the cell for a session," he said evenly and left, pretending to read the report again.

What was the name of this miserable spark, even? Skids read it: Getaway. He smiled cruelly. Seems like the bot couldn't get away from the Grindcore, after all.

 

* * *

 

Things were starting to get familiar: an empty room and restraints. Short visit from some 'con brought in a table with something that looked straight from nightmares, but that was it. Getaway knew he was likely being watched, so he tried to make his careful exploration of how reliable the restraints were as stealthy as he could.

Not that it was of any use to him: he knew he couldn't break the lock in the first five minutes after being stranded here. He needed to do at least something not to fall into complete panic over his situation.

He recalled his last mission and cursed at how stupidly naive he was. Sure, let's send a lone hacker into a sector where 'cons are currently in power. Oh, you just need to make sure there is no byte of information coming out of the system. He assumed the command was planning an attack in this sector, and he could hide until the friendlies arrived. That's what he was hinted at, no questions asked. Delicate intel, Getaway understood.

Now that he was caught and most likely was to be killed, _painfully_ , he thought that his real task was probably to make sure no signal came into or through the Ampera relays. So that in a battle somewhere else the 'cons wouldn't get a backup from the impressive forces gathered in this area.

And he was left there.

Well, he understood the prices of victory and sacrifices. It came with his programming, sort of. He just wasn't ready to end where he ended.

It wasn't like the patrol that caught him told him where he was sent. Even if they actually told him, Getaway was unconscious during the whole transfer. Perks of being shot and beaten up. But when he woke up, he discovered that his surroundings have changed to something looking suspiciously like a prison camp. A decepticon prison camp, to be specific. He was sent to the line of autobots, equally terrified as he was, waiting to get tagged and obtain a new, sharp t-cog inhibitor claw.

He shivered, remembering the process of implanting it to the back of his helm.

The bots in the line whispered to each other, hopelessly: they have been sent to the Grindcore.

The door to his cell finally opened, and a tall cybertronian with bulky frame and empty face walked in.

"Oh, finally! I thought you guys went extinct or something," Getaway couldn't held back. His fear was affecting him, and it wasn't good.

The guard scowled and went to the table with tools. Getaway held his breath as he watched the guard - interrogator, probably - take the datapad and start writing something.

"Getaway of?" He asked in impassive voice.

"Sorry. Classified," Getaway said, thinking he probably shouldn't have done that.

A fist connected to his face right after that told him the same.

"Fine! Of Corpacsia Incrusion. Just don't hit me, I'll tell you everything," he blabbered.

It wasn't his first interrogation, to be completely honest. He had a talent, unfortunately, that was noticed by his superiors: he could get a lot of information from his interrogators and then get away from imprisonment. Several of his missions were about getting caught on purpose.

His current situation was a little harder. He knew no one was coming after him and there was no order to get some intel from Grindcore. He wasn't prepared and didn't know how to approach this. Maybe he should have just died, as his command indirectly ordered him to.

"A knock-off," the interrogator wrote that down, not even looking at Getaway.

"What, no jab at my name? Come on, Getaway couldn't get away from being captured. Perfect for tasteless jokes."

The 'con - Getaway was slightly irritated that he couldn't see his badge so he could focus on this and wholly justify the slur - didn't react. It was alarming that he put the datapad away now and reached for the tools.

"Your first mission?" He asked nonchalantly, approaching Getaway.

Getaway prepared himself. He didn't flinch when the interrogator's hands with demonstrative carefulness slid down his chestplates. He didn't flinch when he started working on taking off the plating on his side.

"N-not really," he stuttered as he felt the circuit plates being uncovered.

"What were you usually doing in the army then?" The interrogator's voice was quiet and almost gentle. Getaway hated him for that.

He felt something connecting to his side and then - sudden electrical shock running through his circtuitry, voltage higher than should be. He didn't scream.

"Oh, just." He ex-vented carefully. "Scouting. Nothin' much."

"How much exactly?" The torturer pressed on.

The pain in Getaway's side increased. He had to collect himself before answering.

"Hey, you, fetch this crate over here. No, I said over HERE, you dumb knock-off, do they make you without brain modules already? No wonder this goddamn war is taking so long with soldiers like that. WHAT DID I SAY TO FETCH?"

Another punch to his face. Primus, this guy had a heavy hand, Getaway thought.

Suddenly, the interrogator leaned in close to him, focusing his full attention on Getaway for the first time. Getaway saw his terrifyingly empty expression, dull light in yellow optics and - what kind of joke was that? - a small Matrix tattoo on his right cheek. He had no chance to process anything of it as he felt tearing pain in his gunshot wound. The interrogator stuck his finger into it and twisted it inside, reopening his leak and bothering his receptors. That almost made him scream.

"You have a choice," he said, pressing into Getaway's wound with force, "I decide that you're just another frontline knock-off without any value besides spare parts, and your next destination is the smelting pool." Getaway shook his head without thought, not ready to die, not like this. "Or you prove you have some information that is worthy of wasting the supplies on, and you live. What do you like more?" The guard bared his teeth, his first expression of something.

Getaway trembled in panic, trying to move away from this freakishly calm monster before him. All his previous missions in prisons were serious as hell, with a real chance of him dying there, but only now it felt somehow more real, more intense than ever. He had no plan. He had no chance of rescue. He had no idea of how his command would even react to his return, if he ever made it out of there - and as far as he heard, no one has ever came back from the Grindcore.

He really didn't want to die.

"The one with torture and stuff, and oh, me living. I really like myself alive, I'm so great at this," he stammered, walking on a thin blade.

"Your team. How you passed the defenses in Ampera system. How you broke down all relays from the station on just one moon," the interrogator uttered, each word distinct and sound.

Getaway thanked whoever was responsible for designing his frame. If he had a face, he wouldn't be able to hide his surprise at the realization of the fact that this primalist interrogator had already decided that he had valuable intel and now was just scaring him. Points to the guy - Getaway was scared sparkless.

"Uh. Sorry. Classified," he said again, daring his luck.

The interrogator pulled his hand on his wound and tore the plate open. Getaway screamed for the first time.

 

* * * 

 

"Patich him up and get him into solitary cell. Basic supplies. I'll notify when his interrogation schedule is ready," Skids said to the medic and guard, not looking at them. He cleaned his hands from energon and grease carefully and then took the report datapad.

He paused in thought. He wrote under the header with prisoner's name and date of first session:

"M.T.O., tells he's a scout (true). Potential spy. Spec ops? Trained to withstand torture, dodging questions under pain."

Skids scowled at the memory of panicked flicker of prisoner's optics. It was the only indication that he felt pain for the most of the session besides rare muffled screams. Skids found his behavior a little odd. Even trained agents that eventually ended in Grindcore showed the tiny hints of breaking down on the very first interrogation because they knew where they were. Everybody in Grindcore left Grindcore in the same way, the ticked straight to Primus himself.

And this impudent knock-off acted like he wasn't affected.

Skids thought about it some more, disliking that it bothered him at all, and shook his head. Grindcore broke down everyone. He knew that firsthand. He saw that happening to others. This scout had no chance.

"Request the information about Getaway of Corpacsia Incrusion in other prisons. Interrogations frequent, no intense questioning at first, need to find out the pain tolerance level," he wrote down.

Putting the datapad away and preparing the text in his head for a more detailed report, Skids knew he was most likely to be appointed to the next session.

After all, he was the best about learning how to cause pain to any body that got under his hands.

 

* * *

 

Getaway curled into a ball of concentrated suffering in his cell.

Decepticon medics still have no idea about anaesthesia, he thought bitterly, patting his patched up plating that still hurt like hell.

The dread tainted his spark slowly as he tried to come down from the torture. He was scared. He was going to die here, if not this day, then another.

He put his hands over his face, remembering the icy feeling in his optics, frozen right after his activation at the Incrusion. Some part inside him, that was responsible for him fleeing the battlefield that day, the part that was responsible for him living today, was now telling him just one word.

Survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's for a prologue. I have up to 10k words written for this work, and no clue how much will be written by the end. Tags to be added, I suppose.


	2. Chapter 2

Skids read the report from the previous session thoroughly, searching for any hint of what he could work with now. No such luck - the scout seemed to realize the longer he keeps his (absent anyway) mouth shut, the longer he can live his pathetic life.

There was little worry about this - the documetnation about Getaway of Corpacsia Incrusion finally came from some far away system, and it confirmed Skids' suspicion. He was a prisoner there, as well, who then managed to escape. Judging from the size and staff in this backwater joke of a prison camp, there was barely anyone competent enough to recognize their mistakes. Skids made a mental note to be more careful around this scout and - more forceful. He had enough time to break him down.

As he entered the interrogation room, he shoved away the involuntary feeling of hope that appeared in his chest when he read that the scout has escaped that place. Nobody has ever escaped from Grindcore. There was simply no way.

"Oh! Hi!" The scout exclaimed upon seeing Skids. "My favorite torturer arrived! Thank Primus it's you, the last guy was bonkers."

Skids side-eyed the prisoner's frame. The medics stopped patching the cut and torn plates after the second session, making sure only that there was no lethal leak or infection. Why bother and waste supplies when the patches would be torn anyway?

He went through five sessions in total by now. Skids attended the first four, finding all sorts of soft places and sore spots. Admittedly, the scout was a challenge as he seemed unfazed by this, but Skids tried not to feel excited at this. What he was doing was bad enough as it was.

"Favourite torturer?" Skids asked, inspecting new wounds closely. He didn't stop at just visual examination, probing the cuts and dents with his fingers, feeling tiny shudders from the body under his hands as he hit the sore spots.

The previous interrogator's goal was mostly to hurt and add some sense of variety to the prisoner's experience. It was inadvised to leave someone in the hands of one interrogator for too long.

"Uh, yeah, you're, like, on the top of my personal list," the scout chirped. His breath cycle has become only a fraction shallower. It was really admirable.

"Did the last _guy_  treat you badly?" Skids somehow, against his own precautions, felt like playing along this odd autobot's chatter. He didn't know what to make of the sarcastic praise from his victim.

"Well, he was boring. Like, really _boring_ ," the scout readily answered. "I mean, you're not the one to ask for a stand up comedy, but at least you don't take hours and hours to talk about your private t-cog collection from your grateful clients. I thought that I was supposed to do all the talking during this. You should fire him," he whispered to Skids, raising his optic ridges expressively.

Skids blinked, trying to process the information. Private t-cog collection? He frowned at that. All staff had very clear instructions: do whatever you like, but leave the transformation module intact and functional. As far as Skids knew, there were regular shipments for the Decepticon Justice Division HQ with crates full of t-cogs. Nobody wished to mess with Tarn's orders, even in this insane place.

"Thanks for the tip," he said flatly, making a note to raise a question about investigation of this guy - Speedrunner - and his private collections.

"Anytime, buddy," the scout's tone was amused, condenscending. 

Skids felt rage flaring up in his spark. Without thinking, he pressed his palm into the scout's abdomen, hard, breaking already cracked windshield and denting pillars, and the tiny yelp from his prisoner that still sounded more surprised than tormented only angered him more.

"I am not your buddy," he snarled into the scout's face, his gaze drilling into bewildered blue optics. What was he thinking, letting his vox coder run like that? Was he thinking that he'd just stroll through this prison, without it clawing the very spark out of him? He was so very, very wrong, Skids thought, feeling his palm getting wet with energon.

"Okay. My bad. No buddies."

Serious tone from the scout whipped Skids like an electrical lash. He jerked away from the prisoner, feeling sharp, unexpected shock from his outburst. Ex-venting carefully, Skids recalled that he never let out his emotions during sessions. During most of his time in Grindcore. He lost the capacity to, the requirement for getting so skilled at his current occupation. How did this cheap knock-off manage to get under his plates so easily?

Still shaken from his outburst, Skids turned to the table, feeling curious optics following his movements.

"Uh, it's not like I'm complaining, well, I kinda am, but not _much_ , but- could you sometimes not hit me?" There was that nonchalance again, as if nothing happened.

Skids felt his expression betray his irritation.

"Where the hell do you think you are?" He muttered, still looking at the tools before him, trying to choose something.

"Oh, I am perfectly aware of where I am, make no mistake," the scout went on, unfazed. "It's just sometimes you get better results with less violence. You know, you just _ask_ people, and they answer you. No exra torture and gore required, right?"

Skids belatedly realized that he was negotiating, in his odd way. Usually, it was a good sign, a reliable indicator that the victim was ready to talk, within proximity of their breaking point. Usually, it meant job well done.

For some reason, there was this bitter rage in his sparkcase again. He grabbed a long awl and, without any warning, stabbed the scout in his side, the same he was exterimentally electrocuting on the first session. He knew the awl pierced the irritated circuitry and a neural cluster. The scout involuntarily jerked his body, confirming that Skids didn't miss.

"This is Grindcore," Skids hissed, staring the scout straight into optics, making sure he hears every word, _needing_ him to understand what that meant. "Nobody passes through it without pain."

"Even you?" the scout asked quietly.

Skids froze. He wasn't prepared for- for whatever that was happening here. Not for this soft voice from his victim. Not for the silent sympathy that he was sure he imagined in serious blue optics, their light flickering from pain. He found himself caught in the trap layed down by the bot he was supposed to break down for the second time already, and he wasn't sure how he got there.

He pulled the awl out. The wound quickly filled with enegron that then spilled down the plate on the table. Skids thought that this sight was sickening.

He left the cell, feeling the scout staring at him, feeling cornered, somehow worse and more desperate than when he was just caught and sent to the Grindcore himself.

 

* * *

 

The path to from his cell to the interrogation room became routine. It was still pretty bizzare to walk there in company of two guards (who _never_ appreciated Getaway's attempts at communicating) as he had no goal to achieve, no order to fulfill. There was little hope in actually breaking out of this prison, Getaway understood that.

Perhaps it was a matter of refusing to accept the helplensess of this situation. So he went along. And tried to survive the best he could.

Somewhere after seventh session he was appointed to labor work. Apparently, the planet he was on had some mining resources of interest, and what's better for cheap resources than war prisoners? The work was cruel and crushing as they all still had inhibitor claws, and the tools that were allowed were as primitive as they could be. It was understandable: maybe the output of this work was barely profiting to anyone, but it kept prisoners busy and constantly exhausted.

Hell, Getaway would bet that Grindcore actually profited the most from the internal organ traficking than anything. He would bet his _t_ _-cog_  on that.

But it gave him some opportunity of exploration. As he saw the clear sky for the first time in weeks, the first thing he noticed was traces of shuttles. That meant a space port within running proximity. First actual clue on how to escape.

But so far, he had no means of getting there.

Stranded on the slab again, in a horrifyingly familiar manner, Getaway now waited for his interrogator to appear, thinking.

He figured he had two most reliable, but equally unlikely options of breaking out: striking a riot or getting help from the inside. 

Riots were not too rare, to be honest. Getaway witnessed two attempts in the mines. During both, he ran away from the epicenter of the fight and hid. He saw how prepared the guards were for any wrong move from the autobots. How apathetic they were to the prisoners' desperate attempts to run away from this hell as they methodically shot everyone who dared to raise their ineffective mining tools at them and then - some more, just to make a point.

Getaway actually doubted he could arrange a riot in entire prison, the only likely chance of them overpowering the armed decepticons. The communication with prisoners was too scarce, and people were too desperate. That cut his chances to somewhere around zero. Maybe even to minus one.

And the inside help... Sigh.

The door opened, and Getaway recognized his first interrogator.

He was both surprised and hopeful to see him. During his last visit, Getaway was confident he got the upper hand. He hoped to continue getting under the guy's plates, all stabbed sides be damned. He was sticking out from the usual types of his torturers, with his odd Matrix tattoo and that missing Decepticon insignia. Getaway could work with that.

But, of course, the interrogator must have realized his mistake pretty quickly as his visits ceased immediately after that session. The sessions that followed that one were led by a variety of 'cons, all of them - gleeful sadists, there was no need in Getaway's special "prison training" to recognize that. Then his sessions were diluted with mining work. Out of worry, Getaway gave out some bits of (outdated) info "under pressure" to prove there was still point in keeping him alive.

It was funny how this place made him shift between desperation and hopefulness so damn quickly.

Without a word, the interrogator stood beside the instrument table, fiddling with tools on it. Getaway watched him for some time, noticing his siff posture and practiced lack of expression on his face, half turned away. He could _definitely_  work with that.

"Well, hello to you, too," Getaway tried.

The interrogator cast him a distant look, not acknowledging his greeting. Getaway chose to be not offended at that.

More silence. The interrogator finally picked up a drill and turned to Getaway. It started up with a shrill, and Getaway tried his best to keep his expression calm and pleasant. His brain module worked fast, analyzing the points where he could find some leverage, something to start casual conversation with, to chip away the interrogator's armor of indifference and stab him into some soft and gentle place. 

"No offense, but your sour face kinda makes me question who's torturing whom here," he probed.

The interrogator scowled.

"Shut up or I'll make you," he said without emotion behind the words.

"Uh. No mouth." If Getaway had his hands free, he'd point at his faceplate with his thumbs.

"Then I'll carve you one and shut you up," the interrogator quickly recovered.

"Ohh! That's much better!" Getaway approved. He was talking. That was good. "But still no heat, no passion behind your threats. Kinda kills the purpose, get it?"

The scowl on the interrogator's face threatened to collapse inside, Getaway thought. He felt his spark almost vibrating with curiosity. Something was bothering this bot. Something big enough to prevent him from being a sadistic prick right now - the drill still shrieked uselessly in the air, and not inside Getaway's body. 

"I'm serious," Getaway said, lowering his tone, sounding as if he was honestly concerned. "It's the first time I meet such a sad decepticon. Is this some new method of torture?"

Some emotion flickered through the interrogator's optics, too fast to catch and process. He turned the drill off and put it down.

"I'm not a 'con," he said in the same expressionless tone that somehow sounded more dull, almost choked.

Getaway mentally high-fived himself.

"Then what are you? An autobot who just happened to be employed as a professional sadist in the galaxy's most feared decepticon prison camp? Is the pay good?" He pressed on.

The interrogator looked almost pained at this question.

"It appears that I am neither."

That was it. The realization hit Getaway harder than this guy's fist. It made sense now, the lack of insignia, the polished skills in lack of emotions, the goddamn Matrix tattoo. As Getaway processed his guess, studying the emotions on the interrogator's face uncovered - pain, shame, loathing - the Grindcore in his mind dinged a level up in its scariness.

It wasn't surprising that some autobots turned coats during war, trying to save their lives, it wasn't surprising and it wasn't excusable. But right now, Getaway couldn't even judge this obviously ex-autobot because he was frightened of how the horrors of this place apparently could twist people and turn them into apathetic monsters. He was frightened that, given enough time, this place could corrupt him, too.

"I'm sorry," he said with calculated sorrow.

The interrogator looked at him in surprise, blinking. Getaway knew the interrogator saw what he needed to see on his  face - sympathy and sadness.

However, it made him only frown more. He picked up the datapad with reports and started filing something into it.

"This session is over," he said curtly and headed to the exit, still writing.

Getaway was only partially worried over this turn. He layed down the traps well. If not today, then another day, he would eventually be able to make this guy cooperate.

"Hey!" Getaway called. "What's your name?" He asked, feeling the urge to test his success.

The interrogator stopped and looked at him over his shoulder, yellow optics unreadable.

"Skids," he said.

"Skids," Getaway repeated. "I like it," he grinned to the interrogator's back as he left.

 

* * * 

 

Skids felt his plates itching.

He scrolled his last report from his case with that scout paranoidally, trying to find any mistake that could compromise him. It was fake as Skids' cover of impassiveness because apparently this case went into direction that could be simply described as "hell".

It was too daring to call that "hope", even in the back of Skids' mind.

Skids was reasonable enough to admit he was bested by the scout. He never expected from any of his victim to care about him, the torturer that brought only pain and misery to them. He never prepared for someone _understanding_ his situation, never thought anyone would react with sympathy, and not judgment.

Some of his victims were sharp enough to realize he wasn't a branded decepticon and perhaps even guessed correctly who he was then. Oh, they judged. Skids took no offense in that.

Skids turned back to his request for information from other prisons, the only answer to which came from a far away system. He memorized the text in it by now. They never found out how exactly the scout slipped away from his cell nor how he stole the shuttle to get off the moon. The inside investigation that followed his escape didn't show anything: the scout had no help from the staff. It looked like he was there one day, and on the next day he just disappeared.

There was no basis to believe he could disappear like that from Grindcore, of course. If he tried, he'd be caught and killed on spot, and that fact was actually useful for Skids in what he was cautiously thinking of doing. He needed the scout to know that without Skids he wouldn't make it out of there.

Given, of course, the case that his escape wasn't just dumb luck and was within the scout's actual ability.

Skids didn't hope. He simply wanted to test his theory out.

He put away the datapads and went from his cabinet to the interrogation rooms. The scout must've been dying of boredom by now.

Stranded on the slab, the scout greeted him.

"Hi, Skids!" He exclaimed.

Skids felt electric shock surging through his circuits, hoping his reaction didn't break through his facade.

He stood beside the slab, his arms crossed, studying the scout's frame. For once, he had all the questions that really mattered, that were worth asking his helpless victim. He just had hard time figuring how to ask them.

What a mess.

"Look, I, uh," the scout fidgeted under Skids' stare nervously. "If I said something wrong last time, about the employment and good pay, well... I'm sorry." He said, dropping his nonchalant demeanor for once.

Skids cocked his head, blinking slowly. He didn't trust his vox coder right now.

After a while, he said:

"Noted, _Getaway_."

The scout's face brightened. Skids felt like he just crossed some border he wasn't allowed to cross. He sighed quietly and decided it's now or never.

"The Monidiga system," he uttered, watching Getaway's expression closely, satisfied to catch a blink of recognition in his optics. "Tell me about it."

"Sorry? Never heard of it."

Skids cursed under breath. Of course. What would be the reason to tell him?

"You were there, in decepticon facility," he pressed, still. It felt... bizzare to ask questions without backing them up with physical contact. He was rusty at simply talking, it appeared.

"Then there's no reason to tell as you clearly know about it," Getaway was still on defensive, his body tense in restraints.

"True," Skids admitted. "Except for one important part: no one from there actually knows how you managed to get away."

Getaway snorted - either at the incompetence of his guards there, or at Skids' deliberate pun.

"Sorry. Classified."

He was clearly daring Skids.

Skids mused on how he could make Getaway believe that it was worth being honest with him. From Getaway's position, all that Skids did and said right now could clearly be a bait meant to make him talk. From Skids' position, he was walking in blind, not sure if he was about to invest his safety into somebody's skills he might have imagined.

He picked up the drill he discared last time.

"Oh, that's where you're going now. And I thought we were friends, Skids," Getaway's tone was accusatory, still daring.

Through the choking emotion Skids couldn't name, he said:

"The medics will get suspicious if they won't be needed after sessions. Don't worry," he assured Getaway, who laid still on the slab, probably preparing himself. "It won't hurt much."

 

* * *

 

Pacing in his tiny cell, Getaway tried his best not to feel elated.

This guy, though. Skids. Former primalist, ex-autobot, professional torturer. Getaway was pretty confident he outsmarted him.

He knew that the most important part now was not to declare victory too fast. The difference between "pretty confident" and "100% confident" might have been lethal in this case, where trusting his enemy he supposedly have torn apart was crucial. There was no getting around the part of laying down all his cards if he actually wanted to break out of Grindcore. And normally, Getaway would have some spare aces hidden, just in case he needed to cheat his way out. Now, he had none.

He needed to be very, very careful. He needed to make Skids talk before talking himself. 

Getaway sat on the floor, running his fingers through torn plates, his processors barely containing the excited flow of thoughts. _Primus_ , he thought, _this guy doesn't mess around with this torture thing. A real win for the 'cons_.

When Skids got the drill, he promised it wouldn't hurt much. Surprisingly, it really didn't. Getaway was somewhat shocked that it took him this session to realize the skill and precision in Skids' hands. It was as if he knew exactly which places to avoid, what would look worse than actually felt, how to _fake the torture._  That wasn't something Getaway has ever encountered before. He filed away a note to give it more thinking of what to do with Skids if he would actually cooperate. Leaving him in Grindcore where he was seemed like more torment to whoever would end in his hands; giving him out to autobot forces seemed more reasonable, but it would certainly require some extra work to avoid suspicion. "Accidentally" getting rid of him during the escape seemed the most attractive at the moment.

In case it was Skids who outsmarted Getaway, he was certain that he wouldn't live a long and painless life.

For the first time since his activation, Getaway was looking forward some pain and interrogation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing text from mobile is a terrible task.
> 
> Feedback would be greatly appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

Skids made sure that the case of Getaway of Corpacsia Incursion was led by him and him only. His reasoning was that the scout- Getaway was holding extremely well under torture and it required an incredible amount of skill to make him talk. The exact amount of skill Skids possessed. The only reason he wasn't the prisoner of Grindcore himself.

Indeed, Getaway was a hard case, and Skids had no doubt that even if he wasn't trying to pull his insane stunt, this very prisoner would be still appointed to him. He felt sincere admiration for Getaway and his unbreakable attitude.

It was so long since he felt anything.

It took some time for them to get to the point during sessions. Carefully, not trusting each other in the slightest, they danced around the topics both were desperate to raise. Skids gave in first. He started giving out little bits of information about Grindcore, its structure, regimen, staff numbers. He reasoned that if Getaway wasn't capable of cracking this prison's locks, there wouldn't be much harm in telling him this information.

He also was desperate. He could admit that to himself. He wanted to believe, very badly, that this might have been his way out of this hell. Maybe even to his redemption, but it was too daring even to think about it.

To support their cover, Skids never abandoned his actual work. He always dedicated some time of the sessions to what he was supposed to do: asking Getaway questions about his mission in the Ampera system, who he worked with and how he executed such task. He backed up that part of conversations with physical force, but he couldn't bring himself to do _that_  part properly. Now, that he had a choice in that, however small, Skids never chose to cause more pain. Just enough to look terrible, to call medics. Just enough to make his spark shrink in guilt he thought he buried deep with his other emotions.

Still, Getaway was unfazed by this as always. He seemed more relaxed around Skids now, more talkative, more lively, even though still cautious about what he let out of his vox coder. Skids knew he was smart not to give away the most important parts, but he dropped enough hints that whatever happened on the moon of some planet orbiting Monidiga wasn't accidental.

And Primus, Skids missed talking to someone who wasn't a decepticon resenting him for what he was and who wasn't intimidated in the slightest by his ability to tear tortured screams out of anything.

* * *

"I'm thinking of canceling your labor work."

"And why is that?" Getaway cocked his head. For some reason, Skids seemed agitated about this. He really couldn't see why that would be important to him.

"There was another riot."

"Aw, are you afraid that I might take lead in the next riot and break out of there? Without you?" Getaway cooed, mocking.

Skids looked up from the datapad he was frowning at. He frowned more, processing Getaway's question.

"No," he said, dead serious. "If there is an uprising during work, 'cons kill everyone involved. And then some more. That's the instructions for supervising prisoners in the mines. You might just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Getaway shut up. Skids had a point, despite that he wanted to argue out of reflex, telling him that he was doing fine during all witnessed incidents.

"You're the boss," he scoffed. Skids only shook his head at him.

If Getaway wasn't still in tight restraints every session, he'd been making some stupid happy dance every time he confirmed that he had his interrogator and torturer on the hook. It was almost palpable how desperate Skids was, greedy for any hint of hope. Getaway didn't even have to try very hard to make him talk. Soon after the hint of his escapology expertise was dropped, Skids was telling him the very needed information about the prison camp he only now started hoping to escape.

Honestly, it was a little scary. By now, Getaway had no doubt that Skids wouldn't double cross him (he wanted to believe that his instincts were still sharp, though, and that he didn't catch the apathy to his fate from Skids). The scary part was how deep Skids seemed to be into this hell that he tried to grab every little straw to get out. Because, seriously? Relying on your prisoner? That made Getaway question how hard the escape could be, given that even with all information Skids had he was still there.

"Skids?" Getaway asked quietly, getting his attention again. "Have you ever?.. I mean, tried to, uh," he paused, not wishing to use the actual word, "well, what you are heavily implying should happen?"

Skids bit his lower lip, looking away.

"Yes," he finally said. "At first. Several times. Never even got out under sky."

Getaway processed the answer.

"Why weren't you killed then?" He asked.

He internally winced at how suddenly ashamed Skids looked. A wild thought appeared in Getaway's mind: Skids probably wished he was killed during his attempts of escaping, before he became what he was now.

"I was... special," he forced the words out. "There was high interest in getting an outlier to work for Grindcore."

"An outlier? Really?" Getaway was surprised to hear that. Skids seemed pretty normal to him. Smart, skilled, yes, but none of the freaky stuff he heard the outliers could do.

Skids nodded.

"Superlearner. Can master pretty much everything. Really useful in this line of work," Skids said bitterly, staring at his hands.

Getaway didn't know what to say, for once, feeling sympathetic. He knew for sure that it was bad enough for an autobot to end in Grindcore, but ending there and being wanted there alive, working for 'cons? He felt curious at how they broke Skids, but he knew for sure that wasn't the best moment to ask such questions.

He wasn't sure there was any right moment to do that. Even to him, it seemed like a wound best not to pry open.

He contemplated the thought of telling Skids that it wasn't his fault, for the sake of sealing his success in making him trust Getaway. He found he could not do that. He knew for sure that wouldn't sound sincere, even to Skids.

"Too bad they caught you, then," he said distantly, "This place is really a mess." He sighed, watching Skids hanging his head, no doubt thinking about the same. For Getaway, though, that was a fortunate turn of events. Somewhat. "Speaking of: are you gonna? Well? Do your job?" He wriggled in restraints.

Skids looked up at him, head still lowered, expression pained.

"I have to. I'm sorry."

He sounded so sincere it almost hurt to hear.

"Oh, Skids, come on. Where's that tough, no-nonsense guy I met here?" Getaway, to his surprise, found himself in the need to reassure Skids that it was fine. He couldn't allow him to blow their cover because of ill-timed breakdowns, Getaway told himself. "Besides, it's not so bad, really. I wouldn't trust my body to anyone else," he grinned at Skids.

Skids' mouth twitched as if he tried to smile back with no actual smile appearing on his face. Getaway counted that as a win.

"Thanks for the high praise," he answered, his voice steadier.

"No problem. I can leave a review about my favorite interrogator if you need," Getaway winked, trying not to think about the moment when he started feeling more relaxed in the interrogation room, tied to a slab, in a company of a professional torturer, than in his cell.

"That would raise unnecessary suspicion," Skids retorted, though not so serious.

"Primus, just appreciate my jokes, would you?"

* * *

As days passed, Skids started feeling more and more anxious.

Now that the possibility of getting out of Grindcore was almost openly discussed, the weight of its cells and corridors and cabinets of administrative wing with its _paperwork_  started to get heavier with each hour, it seemed.

Well, the paperwork part, despite being the hell on its own, actually became a tool in his cover. To prevent any newly arrived prisoners to get appointed to him, Skids reported to his supervisor that he needed some spare time to revision his records, which he was allowed. Hilariously, this was a very serious matter in this insane place. It wasn't really surprising given who had imposed such order of things in Grindcore.

Skids pushed the thought away. He was satisfied to have that spare time (only a small part of which was dedicated to his self-assigned audit) and that he was still appointed to Getaway's case.

During his time off, he was studying Grindcore and its structure more diligently than ever, and during his sessions with Getaway, he... well, he almost rested, besides telling the scout about his discoveries and listening to his suggested plans.

He could only guess how deeply Getaway trusted him. He wouldn't be surprised to learn that there were doubts, given Skids' position, and he tried his best not to feel a sting in his spark at this thought.

But in the same time, Skids found that he fully relied on Getaway's support. It was as if he was made of titanium, or something even stronger, never breaking under pressure, finding energy to support Skids' crumbling resolve, encouraging him to wait and maintain cover when Skids was close to breaking down completely.

He felt more alive than ever during their conversations. Getaway always treated him as a person. At first - a person who made a choice to torture him, then - a person who was forced to do so. That reminded Skids that he wasn't simply a tool to cause pain, ask calculated questions and produce reports, however painful the process was. Rediscovering that he was an individual responsible for his choices and actions hurt like it never did.

He wanted to do the right thing more than ever now, even if in the end, it would turn out that he himself didn't deserve to get out of there alive.

But maybe, Skids thought, he could be allowed a chance to make amends and be taken back. Who knew?

Feeling somewhat content, Skids tidied another stack of datapads, trying to distance away from the information stored on them. He wouldn't allow himself to waste time beating himself up over what he's done if he could use it to help Getaway out.

He heard a signal of incoming message on his communicator. He opened it and as he read it, the dread and fear overwhelmed his spark.

Tarn has arrived to Grindcore.

* * *

Getaway declared the interrogations the best part of his days.

He was going insane. They were feeding him energon poisoned with lead, and he was hallucinating while his joints were leaking him to death.

Just kidding. He liked the interrogations now because he finally started making sense of the information Skids brought him and they were actually working on making a reliable plan.

He had the main stages figured out. As soon as the opportunity arose, he'd have to rely on Skids to forge some authorization codes and then - bring the action! Primus, he was tired of waiting. The opportunity, that sneaky bitch, never liked to show itself in advance. Most of the time, Getaway knew from his experience, he simply didn't know what he was even waiting for, but as soon as it came, he instantly recognized it and took the bite (metaphorically, he always made a mental note). It always proved to be the right moment. His continued existence was a pretty damn good proof, more than any grueling training or drills he went through.

Getaway also appreciated Skids' courteous concern for his wellbeing, from removing him from potential danger during labor to simply cutting him some slack with the mandatory torture. Getaway was sure he could take some more pain, but he _hated_  being in pain. Now, Skids never pressed too much even accidentally, leaving perfectly terrible wounds and avoiding neural clusters even in sensitive places, warning when to activate dampeners. He really was a master of his work if he could play with something like that so effortlessly.

What was bothering, though, was how Getaway came to hating to see Skids flinching from an offhand joke about his work or just looking like he was in physical pain from doing the required part of interrogation. It wasn't even that Getaway was irritated at the possibility of Skids having a breakdown during some important moment - Skids proved that he was stronger than his state initially implied. It was that under this facade Getaway saw the traces of Skids before Grindcore. He couldn't comprehend how it was possible to twist and break apart that Skids so badly. He could have deserted the autobot cause in the desperation of Grindcore, he could have tortured his former fellow autobots there, but he didn't deserve something terrible like that happening to him. He was a victim there as much as Getaway was. And it was infuriating Getaway.

Still, the question about what to do with Skids was an open one.

Getaway tried to stretch his sore limbs, careful not to trip the inhibitor claw. He was looking forward the next session. There was something in the air.

Something Getaway was waiting for.

* * *

Skids was summoned to Tarn's temporary office several hours later.

He used that time, slowly cooling down his panic, making his apathetic expression he usually wore harden into armor. He knew for certain a call from Tarn would come. That the conversation with this decepticon, however pleasant and civil, would be an interrogation worse than Skids could ever do. That someone like Tarn would never pass an opportunity to test how well he took Skids apart and assembled him anew.

"Hello, my friend," Tarn greeted Skids, who stood before him still, posture suggesting Tarn's unquestionable authority here.

Talk only when allowed to talk to, Skids reminded himself. Tarn liked hearing his own voice possibly even more than picking apart some unlucky 'bots who happened to be in the same star system as him.

"I have heard very good news about you, Skids," Tarn continued, tapping his finger on a datapad before him. "Very effective in work, disciplined, not a single complaint - very good, very good."

Skids nodded once in acknowledgement. He felt like there was an axe swung above his head. He was waiting for it to hit.

"And even your reports and overall organization, you have improved greatly since my last visit."

He must've heard that Skids was doing an improvised due diligence of his archives. Skids felt the irony in this: Tarn was highly displeased with how he usually organized his work. The leader of the Decepticon Justice Division was furious at his explanation that he "remembered what was where anyway". With his love for mind-numbing amount of paperwork, he reminded Skids of a cop he met once, during the events which led to Senator Shockwave's empurata, Prowl. Skids sighed internally at how his mind tried to find any resemblance of his previous life, of _normal_  in this place.

"I would love to continue praising you for your hard work, Skids," Tarn almost sang, his voice making Skids' plates crawl with imaginary electric impulses. The tapping on the datapad became louder. "But it appears that you have encountered some difficulties in your work here."

The tapping stopped.

"Perhaps I can help you this time, too."

Skids _knew_  what was on this datapad. He had no way of knowing, but he knew. Tarn have taken interest in Getaway's case. And questioned what made Skids take so long with him.

"I'm listening," Skids dared saying, his voice hoarse with static. He hoped Tarn would think it was from how he generally tended to make everyone slightly _nervous_.

Tarn shook his head, expressionless mask of Decepticon insignia on his face mocking, disapproving.

"I don't think you would benefit much from my advises, Skids," he said. "You are going in circles with this," he paused, probably casting a glance on the text, "Getaway. I am sure you have just stuck in some place, a minor obstacle. I suggest I accompany you during your next appointment with this... case. A fresh set of optics will help."

Skids felt frozen with fear.

Soon, he found himself before the interrogation room door, alone, feeling like he was here for the first time, wishing to run away and hide so badly. Feeling like every move was letting his screws loose, he opened the door and walked in.

The air was filled with electricity, every move through it hurting. Each step carefully executed, Skids reached the table and took the report datapad, not looking at the slab with Getaway on it.

The silence was unusual, strained, but at the same time - relieving. Smart Getaway, Skids thought, he probably noticed something was amiss when Skids walked in, wearing his old self on the outside, protecting himself from his own interrogation.

He couldn't have imagined what would happen if Getaway would have greeted him in the friendly, slightly sarcastic manner he usually talked to Skids with, with Tarn watching and listening to them attentively from the displays in the supervision room.

On the ordinary day, scheduled interrogations weren't normally supervised or even recorded. The prison was simply too big to watch everything, the attention of guards mostly directed to areas that were potentially more troublesome, like sorting and tagging zone, spaceport or the path to mines. The written reports were the main source of information on interrogation results. Otherwise, Skids wouldn't even dare to talk so openly to Getaway during sessions.

He wished he had a way to let Getaway know that now, they were being watched. Very, very closely.

"Don't let my presence hinder with your work, Skids," Tarn's voice sounded gently in his audials.

Skids nodded, seemingly to himself. He thought briefly of what to use. Something like a chainsaw would definitely satisfy Tarn's fetishized attraction to gore, but he would hurt Getaway too much with that; simply blades and scalpels weren't good enough; electrocuting toys weren't bleeding the victim until the damage was too noticeable; hammers and clamps would leave wounds too difficult to heal in short time, and Skids knew they were running out of it. His optics traced an awl, the same one he used in the first session, he realized as he saw its inventory number. That would do. He was capable of doing a lot with such simple tool.

As he picked it up and turned to Getaway, he noticed his hands were slightly shaking. Getaway watched him carefully, noticing it, too. He looked up at Skids' still impassive face, no doubt wondering what has gone wrong. His body tensed, then relaxed, if only visibly, preparing for what was about to come.

"Let me continue where we left our conversation the last time," he said, the dampeners never letting out a single emotion through his vox coder. "As I have said already many times, you can make this so much easier for yourself if you choose to simply talk."

"Fuck you," Getaway answered, staring at the lamp above him.

Skids shook his head and stabbed him in the forearm, thin awl passing along the neural cable. Getaway's arm tensed, as if he wanted to jerk his hand away. Skids felt a ghost of empathetic pain surging through his neural net. He had long forgotten what it was like, to have his victim's pain mirrored in his body.

"You're punishing yourself, unnecessarily so," the words rolled off Skids' tongue, practiced, surgical. He took the awl out and stopped to look for another place to stab. "Your friends and allies you are defending so bravely are not coming for you. Not to this place. Even if they knew, they would never dare to come for you, Getaway."

He must have imagined that Getaway trembled before the awl pierced his chestplate near the shoulder joint. He kept silent, optics trained on the ceiling.

"He's good," Skids heard Tarn, with the slight grumble in the undertone of his singing voice. "But you are better than him, Skids. Show me."

He must've been getting off to this, Skids thought and discarded the image immediately, disgusted. Tarn could do whatever the hell he pleased in the supervision room, as long as he stayed in place and weren't there, where he could directly hurt Getaway.

 _Saving your favorite victim for yourself?_  An unpleasant voice somewhere in the back of his head called. Skids inhaled sharply, his hands doing the work on their own, tracing the sharp end of the awl around Getaway's collar, barely touching him, scaring him. It was sickening, it was far too familiar, it was far too easy to let himself fall back into habit, his emotions going cold as if the movement of his hands initiated his personality shutdown.

He noticed Getaway's optics focused straight on his face, their expression unreadable. He didn't know what Getaway would advice, if he was even trying to converse with Skids. Would he tell him to stop? Skids hoped so much he would tell him to stop this freakshow, so he could drop the awl and sit on the floor for the next eternity.

Not a word.

Next stab. Close to previous one, for extra hurt.

"I'll try to make this easier for you, just today. Just for you," Skids said, slightly shifting the tool inside the wound, changing angle. Getaway's body answered to that with arching on the slab. "You just need to tell me the number of people who have helped you to infiltrate the sector. I don't need to know if they were autobots or decepticons. Just the number. It's that simple."

"Fuck. You."

Stab. Another one.

A whine, barely audible.

"I didn't mention that for every wrong word you'll get hurt, did I? Well, you know now." Skids said evenly. "I'm making this really easy for you, Getaway. I wouldn't want to see every of your pretty plates in holes, too."

Skids wished so hard Getaway would get the hint. Just told him a number. Any number, three, eight, pi, whichever. Skids have shown to Tarn that Getaway was hard to crack, now he hoped to prove that there was still progress, not _issues_  with this case, to turn Tarn's attention away from it. He'd have come up with a way to work around the presence of the DJD leader in Grindcore later, when they would have time to pause, regroup and ex-vent.

"How many?" He pressed on, drawing the awl out.

Getaway emitted another whine. Skids' spark flared violently. Just how much was he hurting him?

"None," Getaway finally said, voice distorted badly.

Skids cursed under his breath.

The awl pierced the side, close to the hip joint, scratching the joint shell littered with receptors.

"How many?" Skids repeated.

_Just tell me a damn number!_

"None!" Getaway cried out.

"Break him down," came Tarn's order.

Blue light of Getaway's optics was flickering unsteadily, the air was coming out with distorted noises out of his air intakes. That was a new sight, never seen by Skids before. He never brought Getaway so close to a breaking point.

His hands refused to move, their actions finally in sync with Skids' mind. He couldn't do it.

But he should have done at least something. He had no luxury of refusing Tarn's explicit order.

Gathering what was left of his resolve, Skids raised the awl once again, feeling everything in him resisting the action. Then, he did the only thing he could do now, for Getaway's sake. For which Getaway would probably hate him later.

If there would be any later.

Skids aimed carefully to a place under Getaway's neck collar and stabbed it there, hard. Getaway screamed, twisting in ties, and offlined. Skids stepped back from the slab, feeling his knee joints weaken under the weight of his misconduct.

No interrogator in Grindcore was allowed to let their victims slip into unconsciousness during the sessions. It wasn't a strictly followed rule as it was simply impossible to eliminate any chance of fault. But it was a rule.

And Tarn would never let Skids live down after breaking a rule and spoiling his fun simultaneously.

"I apologize. I have miscalculated the force output," Skids said flatly, staring at Getaway, feeling oddly satisfied.

"I am very disappointed in you, Skids," the gentle voice whispered to him.

* * *

Getaway was sure he fried some of his processors while trying to figure out what went wrong. Even now, hung by his wrists in an unfamiliar interrogation room and waiting for a torturer to arrive - something was telling him Skids wasn't coming this time - his thoughts and guesses swarmed his mind like crazy.

He figured something was off the moment Skids walked in, moving like his joints weren't greased for decades, stiff and hurting, his face terribly _void_  of any emotion like he was reprogrammed.

Damn. What if there was a mnemosurgeon in Grindcore? Skids told him there wasn't any, the last one had died during autopsy years ago, but who knew if any of memory surgeons have ended there lately? Grindcore was always hungry for everything, hungry for energon, spare parts, talents and suffering, consuming it all and grinding people into dust.

But it didn't make much sense if Skids really was put through mnemosurgery. If his memories were invaded, there wasn't any use in trying to find out how Getaway caused the communications blackout that got him caught. They were openly planning an _escape from Grindcore_. Surely that would be a priority. And even if it was decided to sent brainwashed Skids to his "favorite prisoner" to scare Getaway and supposedly break him - what would be the freaking point? Mnemosurgery! The ultimate interrogation tool.

The wounds, tiny holes in the plates, hurt deep and burned, it seemed, straight into his sparkcase, boiling innermost energon to the point of exploding. Minus the exploding part. When Getaway came to his senses, slumped on the floor of his cell, surely in the same position he was thrown there, he wished he stayed unconscious. He severely underestimated how badly Skids could actually hurt him. He cursed the moment he started really _trusting_  him, letting his defenses down and relaxing near him. Getaway made a mistake, not preparing for a moment of their cover being blown and Skids deciding to stick to his current work. That was the only explanation that made at least some sense to Getaway.

Even if he wished very badly that there was something else, some unforeseen circumstance that would explain what actually happened. Did he even have a chance of learning about it?

The door opened, sudden sound making Getaway flinch, his feet barely scratching the floor. That wasn't good.

The mech that walked in wasn't Skids, and Getaway didn't know what he should feel about that - relieved or more scared? He recognized the 'con, still. It was the second interrogator he met there, the guy with heavy fists and private t-cog collection (the investigation that Skids initiated made it clear that the guy just liked to brag; or maybe had some really secret stash).

The 'con came closer, ignoring the tool table, and cracked his fingers. Getaway noticed a new accessory - spiked knuckles. Great.

"For a guy without a mouth you sure have a long tongue, you know that?" The 'con said.

 _Fantastic_. Now, he was at the mercy of a guy who had a personal reason to beat the scrap out of him.

"Getaway is currently not available. For an answer from Getaway, put ten shanix into chest compartment. For an honest answer from Getaway, put fifty shanix into chest compartment. For an honest answer without a-" his deliberately long and annoying retort was interrupted buy a punch to his abdomen.

Getaway forcibly ex-vented and looked at the 'con with uncovered abhorrence. The 'con smiled, gloating.

"I'm not Skids with his methods and tricks, knock-off, and you're not my case," the many-toothed smile widened. "I don't give a scrap for your answers. I guess I'll just beat you for as long as I like, until you're really _sorry_  you had talked anything behind my back."

He pushed Getaway's body slightly, making him swing in the air back and forth, and walked around him. Getaway cringed at the increased stress on his wrists.

"Doesn't that kill the purpose of your work on the big scale?" Getaway held under another hit, to a headlight on his back.

"See if I care," the 'con laughed openly and hit him again, and even if he wasn't aiming for the most vulnerable parts ( _like Skids_ , Getaway's mind supplied), it was bad enough that with each punch his wounds were bothered, reopening and aching. There were all kinds of pain here, old and dull, new and sharp, each point of hurting crossing another point and multiplying, sending the waves of impulses through his neural net.

"Can you do me a favor and knock me out now then? You can do anything you want after that, I promise," Getaway complained, annoyed at this 'con, annoyed at himself for whining at all, annoyed at Skids for making it hurt so badly.

"Knock you out? You really are arrogant for a knock-off. Think I'll let you report me later for that?"

"For what."

Getaway didn't understand and had some trouble caring about his current torturer's worries, but talking and making jabs at the 'con made it significantly easier to endure him.

"Don't play dumb with me. You're thinking of setting me up again. 'Oh, and you know what, Speedrunner let me go unconscious last time'," he imitated Getaway, not so far from original. "And the next thing I know is that I'm being punished for breaking rules again. I won't let you have it."

Getaway thought he misheard or he was glitching or _something_.

"Does falling asleep count?" He continued aggravating the 'con by inertia, his thoughts processing new information as fast as he could.

" _Rust-eater_ ," the 'con growled, enraged.

The heavy punch to Getaway's helm barely registered at all, raising only some background worry of the hit possibly tripping the inhibitor claw implanted nearby. He was too busy, trying to connect the points in new data.

Skids was very hard on him and has knocked him unconscious last time. His skill level suggested that wasn't, _probably_ , a mistake. Apparently, there was a rule against letting victims offline during sessions, with a punishment for that. Getaway's next session wasn't led by Skids.

Primus, what had happened to Skids?


	4. Chapter 4

Skids walked fast down the prison corridors, past the cells, limping slightly. He visited the prison wing just a few times after he was "transferred" to the other side of his cell door, the memory of it biting at him, making his fresh wounds sting.

He tried his best not to look down at himself, at the chestplate with a decepticon insignia cut onto it, the lines of the symbol carved deep through the plate and undermesh.

Tarn had a sense of humour, cruel and completely unrelatable to Skids.

He unlocked the door to Getaway's cell and, not even knowing how to prepare to what was about to happen, came inside for the first time.

In the instant, he was overwhelmed with a claustrophobic feeling of the cell walls crushing him. He wanted to fall on his knees and cover himself from the terror, but he managed, just barely. Enough to notice Getaway, awake, jerking away from him to the farther wall of the cell, looking at him with unhidden shock in his optics.

Skids also noticed new dents with pierced wounds on his plates, most likely from spiked brass knuckles. Taking the view of him as a whole, Skids realized maybe for the first time how pathetic Getaway now looked, beaten, malnourished, crunched on the floor, hands up before him in an attempt to protect himself from the nightmares of this place and people who have made his life hell, Skids among them.

None of them said a word for a while. Skids was trying to evaluate the situation through the choking fear, what to say, how to say, how to apologize. Did Getaway hate him now? He was scared, clearly, what would it take Skids now to make him believe that he was trying to help him to get out, the only and last thing could do in his life that would matter?

His vox coder refused to form words one time, second, unable to convey the mixed rush of everything Skids felt to the speech.

"Tarn left," Skids finally croaked. "That's the only chance."

Getaway lowered his hands and cocked his head, not understanding him. Skids felt desperation crushing his throat.

"Authorization codes," he lifted his hand with a card, trying and failing to make Getaway understand what he meant.

"Skids, what happened to-"

"We're short on time," Skids forced out, urgently. Why didn't he get it?

"Skids!" Getaway stood up and made a step towards him. Skids automatically stepped away, his back pressing to the cell door. He felt cornered.

Getaway watched him slide down, ex-vents hard and forced.

"You have to get out," Skids managed to say through the static.

"Skids, please, calm down," Getaway sat on the knees next to him, looking him into optics hard. "Breathe, come on, breathe and please, answer my questions, okay?"

It wasn't an easy request to do. Skids managed several breath cycles through his nose, the buzzing static in his head slowly coming off to a bearable level. Getaway was talking to him. It was something. He offlined his optics and nodded.

"Okay, just. Primus, Skids," Getaway sounded more worried than ever. "Okay. Tarn?"

"He's the leader of Decepticon Justice Division," Skids started. The dampeners kicked in, steadying his speech.

"Skids, I _know_  who Tarn is, that's not what I'm asking! You said he left. What do you mean?"

Skids onlined his optics back, seeing Getaway's face close to his, expression attentive and concerned.

"He arrived there a week ago," Skids explained, focusing, words finally falling into complete sentences. "He summoned me and asked about my work here. He couldn't have missed that his special case-" Skids inhaled sharply, but suppressed the wave of panic, "that I was taking too long with you."

"His special case?" Getaway asked, realizing what that meant before he finished the question, terror spreading on his face. "Oh god, Skids."

Skids just nodded in acknowledgement. He continued:

"He watched the last session. When I... I..." He felt himself choking again, unable to say a word, but Getaway helped him out:

"When you sent me offline before things went really bad," he stammered before Skids could protest anything. His finger pointed on the insignia-shaped wound on his chest. "And that was your punishment for breaking secret interrogators society's code?"

Skids cringed at Getaway's phrasing.

"How do you know?" He asked nonetheless. Now that he could think somewhat clearly, it amazed him that Getaway was talking to him at all. Like nothing had happened. Like what happened _didn't matter_. How was it possible?

"Speedrunner's mouth is like a leaky pipe," Getaway shrugged, wincing at some bothered wound, probably. "Which brings us to the next part: now Tarn left. And you have the authorization codes, right?"

Skids nodded again.

"It says you are to be transferred to the DJD headquarters." Getaway seemed to question the choice of that "order", but Skids rushed to explain: "Tarn was hunting for some phase-sixer who defected the cause, and his sources pinged him a clue. He's on the way there. And since I failed with you in front of Tarn, nobody questions why he takes the case to him or why I'm running errands to make that happen."

"Oh! Smart," Getaway approved, and Skids felt pride warming something inside him.

"Do you have everything ready?" He asked, and Getaway nodded smugly.

"Yep. Even the virus - I just need your console and a short look at the security protocols to tweak it a little. We're ready."

Getaway stood up and stretched his arm towards Skids. Dumbstruck at this, Skids took it, letting Getaway help him up, feeling something in him tearing apart at Getaway's words.

Getaway obediently let Skids cuff him, looking excited, _alive_ , ready to spring into action.

"Getaway?" Skids said quietly.

"Hmm?" He answered, probably deep in thought of the details of the plan.

" _Thank you_."

* * *

"Tarn is taking your pet project from you?" The guard at the post to the administrative wing whistled.

"Yes," Skids answered, impassive. Getaway stood beside him, looking meek.

The guard glanced at Skids' fresh wounds, tapping passcodes to the doors.

"Look, it's not that bad," he suddenly said. "We're all on Tarn's list for some thing or another."

Getaway cocked his head at this display of camaraderie from the 'con.

The door opened. Skids pushed Getaway towards it and said, still impassive:

"Noted."

As they walked down the hall, Getaway heard a faint mutter "Gearstick" from the guard and rolled his optics.

The walk to Skids' cabinet was quiet. They met maybe a couple of other 'cons who paid no attention to a punished interrogator escorting a prisoner. Getaway wondered how often something like that happened.

Once inside, both let out a relieved ex-vent. First step went well.

Getaway couldn't hide his curiosity as he looked at the insides of the room Skids was working in when he wasn't in the interrogation rooms. A table with a console, shelves with tidy stacks of datapads - it looked like some officer's cabinet who never seen the frontline battle, weirdly _normal_.

"Wait a second. Don't move," Skids suddenly said, and Getaway felt his hand touching the back of his helm.

He froze.

"Hey, you know there's a claw right- Ow!"

Before he could get really scared, Skids' fingers flickered over the inhibitor quickly, and the next moment Getaway felt the pressure of it releasing, the sharp claw never springing into his brain module. He turned back instantly and looked at Skids holding the device in his hand.

"How did you-? They told me it's impossible to take them off!" Getaway brought his hand to the back of his neck, bewildered.

Skids opened his mouth, tilting his head up, and Getaway saw the round base of the claw at the roof of his mouth.

"I got my own when I was sent there," Skids explained, closing his mouth. "I saw how they're made, and, well. I am a superlearner," he suddenly looked a little sheepish.

Getaway felt dumbstruck. It was the first time Skids demonstrated his abilities in something that wasn't torture, and instantly, it felt so unfair that Skids and his unique talents were narrowed down to bringing pain to people.

"Why didn't you take off yours?" He asked, processing this new discovery.

"Can't work around not tripping it," Skids shook his head. "I need somebody helping me, and it doesn't feel right to let anyone here know that it's possible to take the claw off."

"Then... how long?"

Skids' expression immediately turned withdrawn.

"Years," he muttered, and Getaway felt sincere sympathy. He couldn't have imagined what it was like to be unable to do something so basic as transformation for so long.

He took the inhibitor claw from Skids' hand and put it inside his chest compartment.

"You'll show me later how to take it off, and I'll help you, alright?" He asked, looking Skids into optics.

Skids blinked, looking as if Getaway said that he was a decepticon agent or something equally dumb.

"Alright," he said. "How did you get out of cuffs?" His optics widened at the realization that Getaway's hands were free.

Getaway snickered, amazed at how long it took Skids to notice.

"I have talents on my own," he swung the cuffs on his finger, showing off. "Besides, these things are easy as a monoformer."

Skids looked at him for a long time with unreadable expression before saying:

"I may be wrong, but it seems we do have a chance."

Getaway dropped the playful demeanor at once. Hiding the cuffs as well, he said:

"Yep. But let's not make hasty judgments. We have work to do."

"Agreed."

Getaway sat in Skids' chair and activated the console, opening ports at the side of his helm (thank Primus no hit caused any damage to fasteners) and connecting himself to the computer. Skids took out a handgun and ammunition from a locked drawer and quickly loaded the gun.

Now, it was Getaway's turn to act. At he searched the contents of the console and the local net, was delighted to learn that the Grindcore seemed to have centralized network. He definitely was able to reach the place he wished to reach since the first day in this prison - the spaceport. Nevermind that he did so only virtually right now. It was crucial to know what to expect when (if) they made it there.

Before strolling there through the net, though, Getaway took a close look at the prison's security protocols, making sure his presence wouldn't trip any alarms or send him into trap, damaging his nervous system in the process (these were the nastiest traps he ever encountered). As he analyzed the firewalls and security protocols, he added bits of code to his previously made virus that was designed to cover their escape.

Uploading the finished virus and adding its malicious code to the packets of data streaming through the local net, ensuring its fast and total infection over time, Getaway took the chance to download any bits of what seemed to be valuable. Why pass the opportunity?

Barely feeling physical presence of Skids nearby him, nervous and awaiting, Getaway finally rushed to the spaceport's subnet.

"Skids, you won't believe how lucky we are," he said, not realizing he started hitting Skids' hand in excitement.

"What is this?" Skids leaned closer, looking at the console display, trying to find the good news Getaway was talking about. With no result - it was all in Getaway's head right now.

Getaway sent the flight schedule to the monitor and pointed at one line:

"See that? That's our ride full of supplies, just landed in this hellpit, still hot from the atmosphere, waiting for us!"

Skids read the ship name and its designation.

"A cargo vessel?" He asked dubiously. "Can't we get something faster?"

Getaway glanced on him with a grin. He was already meddling with orders for the crew and flight dispatcher center, faking or delaying them.

"Nope, it's perfect. There's another cargo vessel of the exact same type, but empty," he said, stealthily switching the schedules for the ships in question. "It was going just to depart, but we don't want that. We want that," he tapped the line on the display again, "to fly away from here, with all the supplies." He added the change to the departing time, delaying it. The both crews just received the orders to leave the vessels and go to the medical, fake warning of quarantine making sure they weren't around to talk to the flight dispatchers and uncover the disarray in the schedules. "And the flight speed isn't the priority here, Skids," Getaway said, feeling as if he was already there, in the spaceport, slipping away from this prison and adding this victory to his list. He checked the ship specifications once more. "It's the engines. They recharge over time."

Skids seemed to get his points.

"There won't be need to refuel," he said, drawing the correct conclusion.

Getaway smiled at him, sincerely, and disconnected, adding the last part to the virus - its activation time.

"Think we can get here in half an hour?" He asked. That was the delay in the schedule he sneaked in and, simultaneously, the time when the virus would spring into action, wrecking communications and databanks and raising internal alarms about fire, quarantine, ground quakes and all-prison riot at the same time.

"Definitely," Skids sounded impressed.

"Then cuff me, big guy, and to the spaceport."

Skids emitted something sounding like a choked chuckle.

They left the administrative wing the same way as they got inside. Skids must've had a knack for making fake passcodes, Getaway thought, but at the same time, didn't Skids have a knack for _everything_? In the quiet corridor, he dared whispering about it to Skids, unable to hide his curiosity. Skids only muttered that he "borrowed" his skills, which puzzled Getaway as it made little difference to him.

At the main gates entrance, there was another chatty 'con at the post. He openly snickered when he read Getaway's supposed destination and said:

"Can I take one of his optics then? He's a dead bot anyway, he won't need it."

Getaway suppressed a tremble at that proposition, terrified and disgusted. Skids' grip on his forearm tightened and he answered with a question, his facade perfectly empty:

"Do you want to be inside a crate on the next ship to the DJD HQ?"

The guard barked a laugh, not intimidated.

"That's why nobody likes you here," he said, amused, as he opened the entrance door and made a mocking gesture to the outside.

"Does everybody here have some freaky collection of others' spare parts?" Getaway whispered to Skids as the doors slid behind them shut.

"It's not like there's anything else to collect," Skids shrugged. The bizarre, horrible humour of this exchange made Getaway chirp a small hysterical laugh.

The first step outside the prison, on his own, without any 'con dragging him to the labor or back to the prison. Getaway felt as if he was choking, suppressing his first reaction, persuading himself that they weren't even halfway there. Skids tugged him, gently, making Getaway snap out of it instantly.

The path to the spaceport was several kilometers. Getaway felt the urge to transform, leaping forward and driving there at the cost of his tires, as fast as he could. He reminded himself that Skids wasn't able to change his form. They could walk there. They had enough time to make it to the spaceport, and there was absolutely no need to raise unnecessary suspicion with a unauthorized race.

They haven't made it as far as fifty meters, though, when they met a group of 'cons, the regular convoy for mines, most likely returning from there. As mines were significantly farther than the spaceport, the prisoners were usually transported inside some paddy wagon in a company of several guards. Getaway recognized them, four stereotypically looking decepticons and a tall wagon with pre-war paintjob on his sides. He even had a sign on it, indicating that he worked in police, though badly preserved.

To Skids and Getaway's alarm, the wagon jogged to them, waving to the rest of the 'cons.

"Hey there," he greeted Skids as he approached, towering above them both. "Where're you going?"

Getaway felt Skids freezing beside him.

"Spaceport," he answered, his voice strained. What was this guy's deal?

The 'con grinned and said:

"Need a ride?"

The surprise on Skids' face must've been too obvious because the wagon scratched the back of his head and explained:

"I hate being inside. They just don't make everything big enough for me, you know? And the pay for the overwork is nice."

Getaway felt Skids hesitating before answering. If Getaway could, he'd refuse the suggestion in favor of having as little witnesses of their escape as possible. But at the same time, they were already seen by this 'con. They could have made some use of him at least.

Unable to know Skids' reasoning, Getaway just hoped he would be able to wriggle his way out of the trouble, smart as he was.

"Sure," Skids said evenly. Getaway quietly sighed, glad to hear that he collected himself.

The wagon grinned again and transformed.

"Jump inside."

Thankfully, the wagon turned out to be a quiet driver. Soon after they drove off, Getaway made a conclusion this opportunity was actually pretty useful: nobody would notice a lone guard with a prisoner walking away from the main building to the spaceport. There was no way of predicting whom they could have met down the road or who could happen to notice them from the air. Big trucks, though? If they drive somewhere, it usually means they have some business to attend to. Getaway would high-five the guy if he wasn't cuffed and, well, _inside_  the guy.

However, that meant both had to keep quiet. Skids, standing beside him, looked deep in thought, scowl on his face deep and worrying. Getaway wondered what he was thinking about.

Getaway's gaze fell on the ugly wound on Skids' chest again, and he winced. His thoughts wandered into a direction he didn't want them to go, but he couldn't focus on the plan right now.

He remembered how he regained consciousness after Skids' last session with him. He was shaken in that moment, something Getaway was never proud of, glad that nobody was there to hear him whine in agony. He was angry, more at himself than anyone else for being stupid enough to start trusting his _interrogator_ , angry at Skids for pretending to be harmless so easily. At that moment, absolutely irrational feeling of betrayal made it hurt more than his wounds, the rational part of Getaway telling him he shouldn't have fallen for something so obvious, not helping him at all.

In that shameful moment of being enraged, Getaway thought with malicious bitterness that at the first opportunity he'd have shot Skids for making him go through this. He could do that now, on the way to the spaceport. He needed just to sneak his hand out of cuffs and reach for the handgun hanging on Skids' thigh. It was easy to imagine the look of shock on his face for a second before being shot in the head.

Getaway knew he would do no such thing.

The source of that knowledge was hard to understand. Not that Getaway was trying - he actually found himself thinking of points he would definitely raise to the command about Skids. That the superlearner was an asset. That he, apparently, knew Tarn of the Decepticon Justice Division pretty well. That he had enough valuable intel on the Grindcore even despite the stuff Getaway had downloaded and was finishing encrypting in his databanks. That, maybe, he needed something more like therapy and less like court-martial.

The wagon stopped, interrupting Getaway's thoughts before he could question where that even came from.

Skids nudged him to step out of the wagon, looking around with suspicion. Getaway shared that: the truck drove them straight to the landing zone, skipping all the posts, apparently. Not that they could complain.

"Wha- Ah, Pit, I forgot you were there," the wagon said, sounding surprised. "Sorry, got distracted and drove my usual route."

"I'll manage," Skids said, his face doing something complex, like he couldn't believe the guy and found his actions _very_  suspicious. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem. I killed the time before my next shift."

The wagon drove off. Getaway tried to wrap his head over the amount of lucky coincidences that helped them to get this far, not quite believing in the 'cons' honest desire to help his fellows out, but dropped it. If he found them suspicious, he could have handed them to security. If he didn't find them suspicious in the instant, which was a possibility given how careless the truck seemed, and reported them on his drive back, they still had enough time to slip away. That would make the escape a narrow one, and only.

"He'll probably get punished for assisting us after they make sense of what happened," Skids said, distantly, the scowl becoming deeper. Getaway shrugged. It wasn't his burden.

"We have ten minutes," he said instead. "Time to find our actual ride."

Skids paused before nodding, something close to sorrow showing in his traits.

They skittered around the parked vessels, avoiding meeting rare pilots and mechanics. The ship Getaway had plans on stood unattended, no loader carrying the supply crates from it, locked. He scooted to the airlock and wasted no time, tapping on the access pad quickly, breaking the lock.

In the corner of his vision, Getaway noticed Skids unholstering the handgun.

"Skids?" He turned to him instantly, the air from the opened airlock doors rushing over him with a hiss.

For a second, Getaway's spark felt like fading from terror: had he miscalculated everything this badly? Seeing Skids' expression of dark resolve, the image of being shot in the head and Skids coldly reporting about the security weaknesses leaped through Getaway's mind.

"Go," Skids said curtly, his optics never meeting his, looking around their surroundings and gripping the gun hard. The Matrix sign on his half-turned face looked almost holy. "I'll cover your escape."

It felt like the world has turned upside down, but at the same time - wasn't it doing barrel rolls in the last months all the time?

"Are you insane? You'll get killed," Getaway hissed. And here he was trying to come up with reasons for him to be pardoned from the court-martial.

"They'll know that you left even before they restore the databases. I can buy you time," Skids said, his voice impassive.

That wasn't the plan. At the same time, Getaway knew, dragging Skids with him wasn't the plan before this very moment either. He left the question without an answer for this long, and now Skids decided for him.

"Skids, no. Come with me."

The answer that Getaway knew was reasonable was wrong. Skids' decision to stay there was wrong. Getaway knew that leaving him in Grindcore was wrong the moment Skids showed up in his cell, beaten and panicking, scared, but having done everything in his power to make the escape possible.

"I can't. Not after everything I've done."

"You can't _stay here_  after everything you've done!" Getaway stepped closer, not knowing if he should shake Skids to make him come to his senses, if it would even help. "You've worked for it as much as I did, you deserve this chance!"

Skids looked as if he was in pain, his suicidal resolve weakening. Getaway pressed on:

"Look, I know it's gonna be hard to be back, but dying here won't help anyone. It certainly won't help you. It won't help me to be back either," he added quietly.

Skids offlined his optics, his shoulders slumping. With ragged ex-vents, he said, voice stuttering:

"How can you- after what I did to you-"

He fell silent. Getaway felt like shaking him again, no, punching him, so he would stop wasting time on useless conversations about that. It wouldn't help, but the urge was there.

"Hey, look at me," Getaway said, putting his hand on Skids' shoulder. Skids' optics went online, the yellow light of them bright and daringly hopeful. Getaway's fist connected to his chin, bouncing lightly, nothing more than to make Skids head tilt up a little. "Here, now we're even. Now get in the goddamn ship."

He turned back to bewildered Skids and stepped into the airlock.

Just a second later, he heard Skids stepping next to him, the airlock door closing behind them both.


	5. Chapter 5

It was inadvisable to claim a successful escape before actually reaching the safe zones of the galaxy, so Getaway settled on declaring that they've made it through the first half. He couldn't complain. It was a big plan, and he was glad they have made it this far.

They barely made it in time, rushing to the cockpit where the annoyed dispatcher's requests about the flight state were coming through the comm. Without questions, Skids took the pilot's seat next to Getaway, who broke the ignition locks already and now brought up the navigation map, planning the course they'd take from orbit.

The moment the vessel took off the ground, acceleration kicking in and pressing both of prisoners into their seats with force, the comunication with dispatcher center went offline, marking the time of Getaway's virus coming into action. The comm relays stayed silent during the whole ascent, and they made it to the orbit undisturbed.

"Where to?" Skids quietly asked him then, looking at the surface of the planet through the hardened windows with a strange expression.

Getaway explained that they needed to make sure they wouldn't bring anyone on their tail, so the route was going be a little complicated. Skids just nodded to every word with solemn face, seeming content with whatever course Getaway would suggest as long as they were far away from Grindcore.

Getaway shared the emotion.

He'd have prefered to leap into a nearby nebula at the first opportunity as it would certainly obscure their flight, but the engines required a full recharge first. After its regular flight, the ship hadn't much juice left. So Getaway planned the course to a close star system with a massive asteroid ring orbiting around the sun chaotically. He wished to risk diving into the asteroid dancefloor for the chance of discouraging any possible followers and making a stop to recharge.

"Can you land it on some planetoid without crashing us to death?" Getaway asked half-jokingly, hoping to lighten the morose mood that they quietly shared for no obvious reason.

"I'll try," Skids' answer was humorless.

Skids did more than just try, though. Getaway could only watch in awe how Skids dodged the obstacles, making maneuvers that shoudn't have been possible for a bulky and graceless cargo vessel. When instead of landing the ship on an asteroid big enough to have its own gravity Skids managed to find a small, not more than half a kilometer long in its widest part rock with a huge cavity inside and squeezed the ship into it effortlessly, Getaway was sure he was just showing off.

Nonetheless, Skids secured them from visual detection _and_  the possibility of some rogue space rock crashing into them. When Getaway expressed his appreciation, he just scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

Before settling for the wait for the engines to recharge, there was another task to do, though. Getaway disabled the main tracker before they left the orbit, but he couldn't omit the possibility of the ship having another tracker somewhere inside. As he explained that to tired Skids, he volunteered to explore the outside of the ship hull, trusting Skids to check the insides.

Some time after that, once again entering the airlock, Getaway kicked off the magnetic straps and disabled personal forcefield generator that kept him separate from the sharp vacuum of space. He felt sore and cold after being outside for almost ah hour, crawling over the hull in the dark and feeling the radiation bleeding into his systems. That was going to be unpleasant on his wounds for some time, but it hardly mattered. The outside was clean.

Floating through the main corridor to the cockpit in zero-g, emergency lights barely illuminating his path, Getaway felt anxious. He hoped that Skids was thorough in his search as well.

However, he found Skids in the crew quarters. The room was tiny, suited for six mechs, with two-storied berths and small lockers. Skids, floating as well, leaned against the lockers, holding his knees close to his chestplate, face hidden.

"Hey," Getaway pushed himself inside the room. "You alright?" He asked, worried.

"There are no bugs," Skids answered, voice dull.

Getaway steadied himself besides Skids, grabbing the locker handle to stop the inertia. Up close, even in the poor emergency lightning, Skids' sorry look was noticeable. Fresh dents from his punishment mixed with old scratches and cracks on the blue paint, as if he didn't care about his maintenance at all.

"Good," Getaway dropped quietly, approving. "But you don't look alright. What's wrong?"

Skids lifted his head a little, dim yellow light of his optics miserable and pained.

"I should have stayed," he whispered.

Getaway sighed. That again?

"Skids," he said seriously. "You shouldn't have stayed. I know there's gonna be talks about deserting or even court-martial or some other scrap, but I'll try to pull some strings to avoid that. I'm sure it's possible to earn you a pardon."

Skids shook his head at every word as if Getaway was telling some nonesense.

"I don't deserve a pardon!" He shouted.

Getaway shut up, not understanding.

"If you think what I did to you wasn't bad enough it's because you don't know the rest!" Skids pressed his face to his knees closer, something awfully close to sobbing escaping his vox coder.

Getaway put his hand on Skids' shoulder tire. He said quietly:

"Tell me."

Skids did so.

Getaway guessed some parts of the story, some he didn't. Skids told him he was caught after failing to disarm one of "talking mines". He was transferred straight to Grindcore. At first, he didn't understand the seriousness of his situation, trying to learn the surroundings, making friends as stealthily as he could with other autobots imprisoned there. Sometimes he preached to the most hopeless of the inmates in attempts to raise the spirits. He was sincere in that.

It wasn't until the information about his outlier status reached the decepticons. It was unknown if his guards were observant or there was some information leak, both a possibility. All Skids knew was that at some moment the news reached Tarn, and he became interested in this case.

Getaway listened attentively, never taking his hand from Skids' shoulder and feeling him shaking, as Skids continued, interrupting to gulp the air or sob. He listened about Skids' cellmate, someone named Quark. The 'cons entertained themselves by putting the inhibitor claw onto him when he was in altmode, rendering him motionless. Skids managed to free him.

Tarn has made Quark the subject of Skids' first "lesson". He wanted to test how well Skids' learning abilities would play with torture, picking Quark apart before terrified Skids. Skids learned well. He begged Tarn to stop, with each move of the decepticon's hands realizing how bad it was becoming.

When Skids stopped begging and crying, and Quark couldn't scream no more - not because of exhaustion, but because his vox coder was removed, - Tarn made an offer. Skids could end for to his cellmate. His choice was only in making it painful or painless.

Skids chose painless.

It was only the matter of time when there were more. Every time, it was a little more than Skids could handle. Mercy-killing. Tarn's deceptive suggestions to take his place as the torturer if Skids wanted to make it painless for the victim. Their eventual evolution into demands to make the victim scream. Skids didn't notice the moment when Tarn switched places with him, who was dirtying his hands in victim's energon and who was watching.

"I'm not- I can't go back. I'm too deep into that," Skids finished.

Getaway offlined his optics, Skids' heavy ex-vents and sobs bothering his audials.

He remembered his first capture. How terrified he was. How much he didn't want to die. And how he eventually made it out and came back to the side in this war that brought him into life in the first place. How he did all sorts of things, deception, spying, framing murders and worse, but all in the name of autobot cause.

Would he refuse if the choice like Skids stood before has ever been brought to Getaway? He wanted to think that he wouldn't. That being born on the battlefield made him stronger than that.

He had no way of knowing what he would do, only that he fled his first fight in order to save himself.

"Skids," he said gently, embracing him. "We all like to think that in the face of a choice like that we'd choose "the right thing"," He told Skids, breathing into his shoulder. "In truth, we want to live. I don't know if I would choose any differently. I haven't been where you've been. I can't judge you."

Skids shook his head again in denial, but couldn't say anything.

"I am alive because of what you did. It hurt, but I know it would be way worse if I haven't met you. I wouldn't make it out of there without you and your help, and I'm not leaving you behind," Getaway continued. He almost choke on every word, but he meant that. It was unlike him, to care so much, but it felt good to feel Skids' trembles lessen, to soothe his misery.

"I am a monster," Skids said, sounding more like he was begging for something.

Getaway sighed. And did the only thing he could think of in this moment.

He commanded his chest to part and took Skids' hand. Immediately alarmed, Skids watched with open mouth how Getaway pressed his hand against his bare sparkcase.

The silence after that was deafening.

"See?" Getaway said, laughing quietly, unsure of how everything had happened. "I'm not dead yet." He let go of Skids' hand, hoping he wouldn't pull it away immediately.

Skids didn't, looking shocked. Getaway, despite the instinctual sense of danger that rose instantly with baring his sparkcase, relaxed under his touch. The hand against the essence of his being was warm, careful. It felt more like protection than some dirty invasion of privacy. It felt like trust.

Skids' optics darted between his hand inside Getaway's chest and his face, as if he was unsure what was happening was real, needing to confirm it every second. Hesitating, he traced his fingers on the smooth metal of the sphere. Getaway shivered.

"I... Are you sure that's, uh," Skids shut his mouth, clearly at loss of words.

"I am," Getaway answered, optics smiling brightly.

Skids ex-vented heavily and pulled his hand away slowly, gesture clear that he wasn't abandoning Getaway's offer of trust.

"I hope one day I'll really deserve your kindness," he looked away.

Getaway, closing his chestplates, fidgeted nervously, unsure of implications of his actions. Unsure if "kindness" was the right word.

"You already do."

* * *

Every time they made a stop to recharge the ship's engines, they shut down most of the systems, including the artificial gravity generators. Skids found he liked the weightlessness, feeling light, almost innocent as he floated through the ship, pushing himself from the walls, making routine systems checks.

They have made good progress so far. It felt truly safe to navigate through the nebula, even though it was a challenge that required constant attention. Getaway made frequent checks of their course, seemingly having some sense of direction in the haze of star dust that bounced away all signals. Skids was responsible for moving through the obscured areas, making sure their unarmored vessel protected only by forcefields that easily bounced the dust off, and only, wouldn't crash into something larger.

Almost two weeks passed, and there was nothing on the radars pursuing them. It was unbelievable.

Skids still felt Grindcore's vicious grip on him, heard Tarn's gentle voice in the back of the head calling him back there. There were moments when he thought that the whole escape was just a delirious dream, that he made up an escapist fantasy, that he made up a someone named Getaway who helped him to get away from the nightmare that was his life. Him being far in deep space was so surreal that he was almost certain it couldn't have happened.

Then he remembered the chilly sting in his palm he felt when he touched Getaway's sparkcase, and his doubts and panic lessened a little, letting him breathe in. It was impossible and too daring even for him to imagine something so pure and selfless. Skids would never trust himself with something like that, not after what he was doing for so long. Getaway's act was too crazy to be real in Skids' distorted worldview, therefore it had to be real.

He wondered what he could even do to let Getaway know how much he appreciated that.

Skids finished his checks and now was looking at the medical deck. The ship wasn't equipped with a proper medibay, nothing like that in a cargo vessel for a small crew, but it had some basic supplies. Skids' optics traced the simple medical instruments, their predatory shape making him slightly nauseous.

He sighed and grabbed the spare part box and some of the tools and bounced to the crew quarters.

Getaway was in deep recharge, exhausted from his work outside. There were still collisions with rocks, they were unavoidable, and those that breached the weak forcefield could damage the outer plating. It was better to crawl over the whole hull and make small repairs than to discover later they had a breach from the explosive decompression.

Skids found it amusing that Getaway apparently forgot to strap himself to the berth and now was rather floating slightly above it than sleeping on it.

His amusement changed into a more familiar scowl when he heard Getaway whimper in his sleep. He moved closer, with resolve to wake him up and interrupt the nightmare that was evidently torturing Getaway this time.

Besides, he was going to wake him up anyway.

"Getaway," Skids said quietly, reaching out to shake him by his shoulder. He stopped himself, hesitating.

Getaway whimpered again and trembled, his hands crossing over his abdomen as if he was trying to protect himself from something.

Skids could easily imagine what from.

"Getaway. Wake up," he said, louder.

Getaway's optics came online and focused on Skids a nanosecond later. Getaway jerked away from him, crashing his side into the wall next to him and winced, cradling his bothered hand.

Skids' spark was almost extinguished from the wave of guilt. He knew that seeing Skids towering over him could remind Getaway of the time when he was restrained on the slab, helpless under Skids' hands. He knew that Getaway's discomfort from hitting his hand was because of the time when Skids put an awl through his neural cable.

"Skids?" Getaway slurred, voice not quite steady from the sleep. "What happened?"

And now, to Skids' shame, Getaway decided that there was something wrong. Good job, Skids, he thought. Way to wake up your injured savior.

"Nothing," he said quickly, looking away to not see Getaway's concerned expression. "I thought I-," he stumbled on his words. "I could tend to some of your wounds before we get somewhere we can get a medic. Before it becomes worse."

How did an offer like that even sound to Getaway? Skids wouldn't be surprised if he straight up told him there was no way in hell he'd agree to let Skids get his hands on his wounds again.

"I'm not a medic," Skids added, catching the sight of Getaway still cradling his arm and looking at him in bewilderment. "But I can do at least something."

Because it was as easy as picking someone apart, Tarn's voice suggested in the background. Skids was sure Getaway would tell him to fuck off.

"Oh, that- That would be great, actually," Getaway said, still looking bewildered. "If it gets me rid of the twitch, I think I'll be actually able to help you remove your inhibitor claw."

Skids felt another wave of shame crushing him. Why did he have to be so frustratingly selfless?

Getaway sat up (or rather assumed some position resembling it, holding himself in place by gripping the berth handle) and outstretched his hand to Skids. Skids bit back the question about how he was able to trust him so easily, after knowing to the full extent what damage Skids' hands could do. There wasn't any point in bringing attention to his discomfort, not when he could do something actually useful.

Skids carefully took off the plate from Getaway's forearm, noticing briefly the amount of spare compartments and the easiness with which the plates moved even fastened to their places. It was probably an adaptation to hide useful tools and slid out of restraints more easily. Getaway sighed quietly when Skids reached the damaged neural cable and disconnected it from the neural net, ceasing the flow of impulses of something being wrong with it.

The whole procedure didn't take long, probably less than ten minutes - severe the cord, replace it with a new one, secure the casing after making sure it's connected properly, make a test to probe its sensitivity - but by the time Skids was finished, he rushed to fasten the plate in place, breathing heavily, not trusting his hands anymore.

Getaway watched how Skids quickly finished and offlined his optics, lowering his head as if he was going to be reprimanded.

"Thanks. It feels great to be able to move my hand again," he said, flexing his fingers experimentally. He didn't press Skids to treat his other wounds, but instead, he reached for his chest compartment and retrieved the trophy inhibitor claw. "Now show me the trick. I hope removing your claw will make you look at least a bit less miserable," he grinned, no malice behind his jab.

Skids didn't object, glad to have a break from his self-imposed task that was so similar to what he did just a several weeks ago. Nevermind the goals of the actions were opposite. The principle behind his movements was the same.

"You'll need both hands to do it," Skids explained and showed Getaway where to press so the inhibitor would release the clamps without springing the claw. His hands were shaking, and he had to do it twice.

Getaway tried it experimentally on his claw, just to be safe, and confirmed he got it. He made an inviting gesture for Skids to get closer, the bright light from his headlamp flashing and momentarily blinding Skids.

Skids inhaled and opened his mouth.

"Okay. Careful now," Getaway muttered, probably to himself, as he put his fingers into Skids' mouth.

Feeling Getaway's fingertips scratching the roof oh his mouth, prying into the inhibitor's fasteners, slower than Skids would do that, Skids thought that he should have felt more threatened. One wrong move, and he'd be dead.

The pressure he forgot he was feeling for years have been released. Getaway took his fingers out, along with the damned device. Skids brushed his tongue over the place the inhibitor covered, feeling weird.

"Well. That went well," Getaway said, ex-venting. He looked more relieved that his tone suggested, despite the light from the headlamp that was obscuring his face.

"Thanks."

Skids was at loss of what else to say. Getaway's optics smiled as he turned off the lights.

He wanted to ask Getaway how he coped. It couldn't have been as easy as he made it seem, to be so chipper while sharing the living space of the ship with someone who tortured him. Skids would understand if Getaway wanted to bring him back as a trophy from Grindcore, an autobot gone rogue out of desperation. That was a possibility.

But why would he bother with _caring_ , if that was the case? Why bother with removing the inhibitor claw, for example? Skids himself forgot about Getaway's promise, this minor part buried under the stress of their escape.

"I thought you'd transform so fast that you'd bite my fingers off," Getaway said jokingly.

Skids found himself alarmed that he didn't, indeed. He touched the place where the claw was implanted with his tongue again, and realized that one more chain that tied him to Grindcore was broken. Not that there weren't more.

"Do you want me to crash somewhere by inertia?" Skids tried to return the joke, sounding reasonable instead.

Getaway giggled, probably imagining Skids in his altmode flying into some wall in zero-g.

"Okay, point," he admitted, still amused. He fell silent for a while, thinking about something.

Skids' words were out of his mouth without his brain module's approval:

"You don't seem mad at me for what I've done."

Getaway shot him a look, expression hard to interpret.

"I suppose you don't mean this," he waved his hand, a hole in the plate still there. Skids didn't patch it up after replacing the cable, unable to continue after finishing the most important part. Afraid his hands would betray him, hurting again.

"No," Skids said evenly.

Getaway was silent for a while, apprehensive and somewhat withdrawn.

"It didn't seem like you had much choice," he finally said.

Some part of Skids was annoyed to hear that. Possibly because he blamed himself for making the wrong choice at the very beginning. Possibly because Getaway decided to hold back the truth for whatever reason.

"That's not about me," Skids said carefully. "You also suffered. Badly."

Getaway didn't answer for a while, his silence contrasting sharply with the last time they spoke of the horrors of Grindcore, when he opened up so easily and reached for Skids.

Skids wondered why that made such difference. Skids suffered every day he spent in Grnidcore. That was a fact, undeniable and true. It would be easy to pretend that this excused every of his actions, that he wasn't actually responsible for them because of the lack of choice.

But Skids knew that would never make it up for people he killed and tortured. He was made into a tool of this cruel war, but he wasn't actually made to be mindless, sparkless machine. However little choice he had before him, no matter how bad and wrong his options were, the choices that he made were wrong regardless. He could only hope that admitting to that, not hiding from that, would be the first step to at least some resemblance of redemption.

He wanted to prove that he was worth Getaway's trust. That he could rely on Skids, like Skids relied on him.

It wasn't surprising at all that Getaway seemed to have different opinion on that matter.

"I have some experience with that," Getaway said after that heavy silence, pretendingly light-hearted.

Skids wondered what he meant.

"With prisons, you mean?"

Getaway nodded.

"Interrogations, too. It's technically classified," his tone turned amused for a second, probably with the memory of his favorite answer to any question during sessions, "but I guess it's not hard to figure that I've been sent to be captured and then escape on purpose."

Skids took some time to process that. He was appalled to learn that autobots were sending their own into decepticon prisons.

"Grindcore, too?"

He couldn't have imagined that Getaway shivered slightly at this question.

"No. It was a mission that went south." He sounded dishonest.

Skids wondered if he had any right to pry. He said with irony:

"You know, you never actually cracked and told the details about that communications blackout."

Getaway looked him straight into optics, bright with some emotion, burning him.

"I did," he said coolly, but Skids thought that he was angry. "During the last time."

It took Skids some time to wholly realize what he meant.

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling his throat contracting around some imaginary ball of guilt, choking him. As if any apology he could say would ever make up for it. Getaway just shrugged, noncommittal. Another dot connected to the picture, and Skids, shocked, asked: "You were sent _alone_?"

"Yep," Getaway said, sounding tense. His shoulders slumped, under some weight that pressed onto him even in zero-g.

"Your command is extremely stupid," Skids was angry. "You could never make it out of there."

"I guess that was the goal."

Getaway's tone was even, as if he didn't care. Skids could see the cracks of his facade, indicating that he was angry and upset. Something that never happened in prison.

"I assumed that there would be an attack in that sector," Getaway continued, unprompted. "But it was quiet. My best guess is that my job there was to make sure 'cons in that system wouldn't receive any calls for backups from other places. There was no order for me to come back. No extraction team ever came."

Skids felt blind fury.

"I will find the idiot who gave these orders and pick him apart," he uttered, voice dark and threatening.

Getaway startled at this reply, looking at Skids with caution.

"Wow. You're scary like that."

Skids couldn't be bothered with that in this moment, too immersed in his anger at people who decided they could dispose of Getaway in such manner. He thought with malice that he would deliver these people to Tarn himself.

"Really, really scary, Skids."

Getaway's serious tone brought Skids' thoughts back into the dim room they were floating in, weightless and weighted down by their troubles. Getaway looked at him with a strange expression, surprised, expecting something.

Skids thought he ought to feel guilty and ashamed of that outburst, but he didn't. The unfairness of Getaway's orders were infuriating him far too strongly to hold back the emotions. Would Getaway's commander he trusted his life with be pleased to be abandoned in hostile warzone and be sent into prison camp?

"I can't believe they could just leave someone like you in such situation," Skids made an attempt to explain his rage.

Getaway seemed puzzled by that.

"Prices of victory, Skids," he suggested, still too calm about it to truly believe in that himself. "One warborn knock-off with expired life expectancy for thousands of others."

Skids looked at him helplessly, not knowing what to do to break through this shield of impassivity Getaway raised once he collected himself. Logically, Skids understood that it was probably a defensive tactic of some sort, preemptive admittance of his disposability. But he wanted to make it clear that he didn't think of Getaway like that.

He launched himself in the air, closing the distance between them.

"And see how you proven to be more than that? You executed your task brilliantly, - I've studied the reports, - broke out of _Grindcore_ , of all places, even took a trophy from there," Skids said with passion. "Because you are _capable_ , Getaway."

Getaway fidgeted, moving away from him just a little.

"Don't put me on pedestal," he said, much more defensively than previously. "We're not there yet." He paused, frowning hard. "And I've considered killing you to cut off the loose ends. Still was considering right until we reached the ship," he confessed, looking Skids straight into optics, serious as Skids never seen him.

Skids wasn't surprised to confirm his thoughts about Getaway not fully trusting him to the end. It was reasonable, it only proved how sharp Getaway was, fit to survive anything. The fact that he begged Skids to come with him, though...

Skids raised his hand and reached Getaway, placing his palm on his chestplate, right above the spark. Once again, Skids felt that frosty tingling in his palm, just like the moment Getaway pressed it against his sparkcase before, despite the warmness of his frame. Getaway looked startled. Much more vulnerable than when he had his chest parted before Skids.

"Oh no," Skids said mockingly, "You considered killing me, your regular torturer who could easily kill you any time I wished. I have completely lost my faith in you, Getaway. I was sure we had something between us when I was stabbing you repeatedly in the interrogation room."

Getaway snorted shortly, then started laughing openly, his tension releasing him visibly. Skids never took hand off his chest, studying the way his plates were shaking with laughter, his voice resonating through them.

"You have a good point," he said after his laughing ceased.

His bright optics locked with Skids', smile in them radiant. Skids felt a little nervous under such stare, though couldn't place the origin of the feeling.

"Just so you know: I'm really grateful that you dragged my sorry ass from that damned planet," Skids said awkwardly, taking his hand off Getaway's chest. He was sure he was actually going to say something about Getaway's spark being in right place to justify the gesture, maybe recite some verse from prayers. He wasn't so sure how he ended up saying what he said. But it felt good.

"Would do that again if needed."

Skids' breath stuck in the filters.

"Though I would prefer not to be back, ever."

"I can sympathize."

This time, it wasn't like a broken chain. It felt more like a step away from his personal hell. A very big one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was a torture to write that
> 
> feedback would be cool


	6. Chapter 6

Weeks passed.

The small ship followed a complicated route through mostly empty, abandoned systems Getaway set and stopped to recharge routinely. Its two passengers, vigilant as ever, checked for any signs of anybody chasing them several times a cycle.

Skids allowed a careful joke once that apparent absence of anything on their tail proved the existence of Primus. Getaway laughed, but looked at his face with a curious expression at that time, reminding him of his Matrix sign. Both dropped the topic. Skids wasn't ready to examine the state of his religious beliefs then.

The carefully navigated flight, avoiding any possible encounter with other vessels, alien or cybertronian, left them in a concealed bubble of isolation. It felt as if the world outside stopped existing, and the only events that mattered happened inside the small ship. Grindcore started feeling like a distant, smudged memory of a terrible nightmare, and the future with its wars was too far away to be important. Both Getaway and Skids seemed to realize that they were given a pause to breathe and lick their wounds, quite generously as well.

Sometimes it occurred to Skids that if they happened to die in a surprise attack before reaching the autobots, he wouldn't really mind. It was cowardly of him to think like that, an easy way out to avoid the consequences of his actions. He didn't try to fool himself.

Still, the isolation and the lack of pressing issues were nice.

Eventually they exhausted the scarce medical supplies of the ship. Skids continued to tend to Getaway's wounds, awkwardly, one at a time, not trusting his hands fully, unlike Getaway who seemed to be trusting Skids too much with that. Skids suspected that Getaway could correctly guess why it was so hard for him, someone who could potentially master any skill, despite even not having the agility of medics' fingers. He made extra effort to encourage Skids every time and point out how much better he felt after. Skids wasn't always sure he deserved the praises, but he woudn't dare to complain.

He did so once, when Getaway with unshakable resolve attempted to patch Skids' chestplate and cover the despised insignia. In response Getaway reprimanded him sternly, with the military's most creative insults, while his hands moved unthinkingly over Skids' wound, the procedure probably drilled with his programming long ago.

"...And if I hear that scrap of deserving or not deserving one more time, I'll haul your sorry ass out of the airlock, strap you to the hull and let you bake in space radiation for a week before letting you in again!" Getaway finished passionately. He fixed the patch some minutes ago and now, probably to back up harsh words with some action, he was polishing the scratched paintjob around the patch. "Am I clear, soldier?"

It felt so good to be taken care of.

"Sir, yes sir," Skids answered readily, looking straight before him. Getaway laughed, pleased.

"Chin up, soldier," he did that weird bump on Skids' chin with his fist again. "You're worth far more than you give yourself credit for."

Skids almost believed him.

* * *

Getaway almost wanted to bang his head against the wall until his helm cracked open. He spent a lot of time thinking of how to approach the autobots now that the possibility of actually making it was real and palpable.

He and Skids brainstormed the possibilities, trying to figure out the best course of action.

Getaway chose the route to one of autobot bootcamps where he served once, hoping that there would still be officers he knew, someone relatively safe to approach, someone who at least knew Getaway's usual assignments. The choice was also dictated by the fact that the sector where the bootcamp was was out of the way of the mayhem of war, and they wouldn't have to fight through the decepticon forces to get to the planet. Skids reasoned that this could have changed during the months spent in Grindcore and their travel, but agreed that they'd have to take that chance. If they would notice any enemy patrols, they'd flee. Nothing to do about that, sadly.

Skids suggested to remove the markings from the ship hull. He wanted to make a cross against decepticon insignias on the plating, but Getaway argued that it would be better to remove them completely, in case they ran into decepticon ships. Scrubbing paint was a pain in the ass.

And these were the easiest parts.

The were two huge issues, one for each of them. There was no order for Getaway to return, and he could have been suspected in switching sides. Skids could have been court-martialed for deserting without anybody listening to them.

That was the main reason why Getaway wanted to crack his head against the wall, really.

"You're making that face again," Getaway said, sitting next to Skids into the navigators' seat. Skids was chewing on the energon stick, yellow optics unfocused, staring right before him. Getaway thought again that stealing the supply cargo ship was the best idea ever - he never ate so much in his life. "Spill it."

Skids' optics flickered briefly, and he hummed, swallowing the rest of the stick.

"I'm thinking to appeal to Prime once we make it there," he said.

That was a nice, but hopelessly sentimental idea, Getaway thought.

"Don't you think he'd have better things to do than to listen to a couple of war prisoners?"

Skids scowled, indicating he was thinking the same, but shook his head and continued:

"First, we're not just _any_  war prisoners." Yes, they discussed that before. Nobody ever managed to break out of Grindcore before. Both had lots of intel to share. Hell, they dared discussing the proposition of selling the information of who else was imprisoned there for their lives. "But I also think I can appeal to Prime personally. For the sake of old times," Skids' scowl became deeper, as if he was disgusted to say that out loud.

"Old times?" Getaway asked cautiously, containing his curiosity.

Skids sighed, his expression unusually cruel.

"I've been friends with..." He started, cutting himself shortly, that weird expression of his worsening. "I knew the friend of Prime, before the war. One of Senators supported and funded an Academy for outliers like myself. I was recruited there not long before the shitstorm with this Senator's empurata broke loose."

"Wait, which Senator?" Getaway asked, suspecting the answer, but still not quite able to believe.

"Senator Shockwave," Skids answered, sorrowful. Getaway found it hard to imagine, someone like Skids in company of Prime and the feared decepticon Getaway had luck to never encounter. "He was really different back then," Skids said, noticing Getaway's disbelief. "Later, with the Senate tightening the screws more and more, and when Academy was no longer, Orion Pax recruited what was left of the students there. First of his forces, I guess."

Skids fell silent. He looked like he didn't want to explain more. Getaway was able to connect the story in his head by himself.

"Dude," he said, hitting his arm with his fist lightly. "You're, like, _historical_."

Skids scowled more, but didn't say anything in response.

"Skids. This is your chance."

"This is not right."

"This is _whatever_!" Getaway threw both hands up in frustration. "You can beat into your head that this is not right, or that you deserve more punishment, but I swear to Primus, Skids, if you won't appeal to Prime, I'll walk to him myself and ask him to punch you in the face. Aren't you tired of prisons or being the bad guy?"

Skids sighed, miserable again.

"I am," he admitted. He turned to Getaway and looked at him, hard, as if he wanted to ask him something. Something Getaway was afraid Skids would ask, for whatever reason. "I'll think about it," he said instead and turned back.

Getaway was glad to see his expression soften and relax after that. He didn't want to examine his own emotions too closely.

There was a chance that if he was to dig them up a little, he'd lose it and break down.

Getaway took much pride in his honed skills of twisting and clawing his way out of any situations. He considered relying on others a bad habit, something like drug addiction - it could've felt nice, maybe, but once it failed to deliver, he'd be a dead bot. He knew where _he_  could fail himself, and made sure his flaws wouldn't be fatal. Other people? He couldn't make such predictions.

It was familiar: he got the work done, received stern, distant praises from command, a couple of "Not dead yet?" from his comrades, put a couple of drinks on his tab. Whatever he was put through, it was classified, not for the public eye. The little quirks he got afterwards, the collected panic every time he thought he couldn't move his limbs, the torrents of a little too personal questions and jabs at everyone around him, the habit to stay out of the main action, the urge to take cover every time he heard a jet fighter fly by, they all were subtle. He coped well.

But it was hard to hide these little flinches while sharing the living space with someone like Skids for a couple of months. Skids kept him mouth shut, but Getaway noticed that Skids noticed. He probably couldn't help that, Getaway thought, his optics trained to study body quirks and small reactions. Skids once attempted to explain that he was always like that, even before Grindcore. He mastered metalikato in less that seven minutes after watching a match, for example. Getaway laughed at the rest of the story of how Skids landed the awarded master of this style on his ass, after which that master supposedly resigned to the nearest bar for next two weeks.

But it worried Getaway nonetheless. He hadn't that in him, the urge to share and explain why he was like he was and what made him like that. Did he even know how to do that? Probably not.

Besides, what was there to be breaking down about? Compared to Skids' experience in Grindcore, Getaway had it easy. He wasn't taken apart by mind games of someone like Tarn. He had the experience with prisons, torture, being left alone in hopelessness, unlike Skids who indicated very strongly that he wasn't familiar with how cruel the war was up close and personal, not on regular basis at least.   
The mere thought of him being that fragile and _affected_  by Grindcore made Getaway irritable and snappy.

Especially since Getaway had a suspicion that he was, in fact, _that_  fragile and affected.

Skids didn't dare talking to Getaway about that. But for some incomprehensible reason he chose to not stay uninvolved.

It happened during the recharge when Getaway was too deep into a vivid nightmare, a mix of his old experiences (being chased down from the air with hollering and _homing missiles_ ; he drove so fast and recklessly that he damaged his wheels so badly he couldn't transform back, and medics had to operate him in the altmode) and new ones ( _Skids_ ; Skids wearing the purple mask in the shape of Decepticon insignia, humming some sickening tune and bringing so much pain to him again). Nightmares Getaway could deal with, just like pain, though he hated them in similar manner. He knew even while dreaming that he'd wake up soon and tell himself that it was over.

Except that in some moment instead of waking up, still dreaming, he felt the nightmare delirium loosening its grip on him. The rabid, violent images dimmed and crumbled, the unfamiliar feeling of safety, _protection_  taking place instead. It was so surprising that Getaway woke up from this, not from the nightmare, but from the lack of it.

He discovered that Skids crawled into his berth and now, fast asleep, was holding Getaway close to him. Getaway wanted to push him out of the berth immediately and tell Skids that they didn't made the schedules for nothing, but he found out he couldn't. Exhaustion pressed him down, and he realized that he'd rather indulge himself with this small moment of closeness, pretending to be safe and secure. He fell asleep again before making a connection that he felt as comfortable as when he had Skids' hand pressed to his sparkcase.

Then it happened again, and it puzzled Getaway how relieved he was to find Skids sleeping beside him, as if shielding Getaway from something with his frame. Then it became a routine when their sleep cycles overlapped for at least a couple of hours. It was risky to leave the ship unsupervised, but in all that time, Getaway found out, his rest was the most calm and satisfying than ever.

It was only natural to offer Skids the same comfort after that, when Getaway, seeing Skids struggling in his recharge with whatever was haunting him, layed next to him and stretched his arms towards him, whispering: "It's all right, he can't hurt you anymore. It's all right."

On some level, it made sense. They couldn't have escaped without each other's help. Was it really that surprising that they couldn't cope all by themselves? They could give it to each other right now, and figure out the implications later, after the isolation of their flight would be replaced with the real world worries once again.

Getaway almost wished it would never end.

* * *

"We're approaching the Morania system," Getaway announced from the navigators' seat, tense. "That's our destination."

There was no need to point out the obvious, but Skids was silent, and Getaway just couldn't endure the strained silence in the cockpit.

Technically, it was just another step of their grand escape. One of the final steps, sure, but as with all others, it could be the last. Getaway felt nervous just thinking of that, after everything they have been through, that there was a very real possibility of their own kind not taking them back, making all their efforts pointless. Skids argued with him many times that even with that outcome, nothing they did would be pointless. Stupid primalism. Or naive optimism. Getaway didn't make a distinction.

"Sooner or later we're gonna run into a patrol," Skids muttered. His frown was back on his face, concentration and apprehension showing.

"Sure we are."

The comm links were open for several days now, but so far they were silent. Getaway thought again that completely scrubbing off any signs on the hull was an excellent idea, and told Skids about it each time he remembered. In theory, autobots could not even bother shooting am unarmed cargo ship, even if it bore Decepticon insignia, and just dock with it under threats of firing. That scenario could play out well. _In theory_. Getaway preferred to rely on talking to patrolling soldiers first.

"Sometimes I think I'm gonna wake up in my room in Grindcore again and realize it was just a dream," Skids suddenly said, voice distant and dull. He looked out of the window, vital flight information displayed at the darkness in white spots of stars. "If it happens, I'm gonna shoot my brains out."

"Do me a favor and shoot me first in that case," Getaway answered him nonchalantly. He shared the fear, but he didn't believe in it. Not after so many _good_  things happening to him. He wasn't prone to indulging himself in fantasies so much.

Skids' mouth twitched.

"Will do," he promised.

They weren't going to reach their destination point for another hour, and the waiting was already insufferable.

"You know any suitable prayers to such situations?" Getaway asked.

"You'll be making inappropriate inserts again," Skids retorted, sounding just a little bit amused.

"But that's the whole point."

Getaway thought that they should take what they could from that last hour of isolation from the rest of the world.

* * *

Rejoining the autobot forces went well and not well in every way both prisoners discussed during their long flight.

The good part was that the patrol ship they eventually ran into (or rather, the patrol seeked them out, noticing an unidentified vessel in their territory) was crewed by autobots that Getaway was acquainted with. They knew him well enough, it turned out, to believe he was coming back from some super secret mission on a stolen ship _Narrow Escape_  full of "Actually you know what? It's classified". They escorted them to the planet orbit from which a convoy ship took them downwell, leaving behind their small, almost comfy little vessel.

The not so good part was that now both were in the custody in separate cells. Comparing to Grindcore it was almost as comfortable as personal quarters (cells had berths, for starters), but the closed walls and isolation pressed on Skids in a way that was far from comfortable.

The captain of this bootcamp, the highest ranking officer on entire planet, after carefully listening to Skids and Getaway's story and studying some of Getaway's archives in private of his office, told them truthfully that deciding what should have been done with both of them was far, far out of his competence and responsibility. And before somebody more competent would receive the message about two autobots who supposedly managed to escape the infamous prison camp and decide what to do about them, the said autobots were to be under constant surveillance. Just in case.

To sum it all up, Skids thought, looking at the cell ceiling but not really seeing it, they got off relatively easily. For now.

It didn't make him feel easy, though. His future was still uncertain. He passed his appeal to Prime through the captain, but there was no way to tell what Prime's reaction would be. Or if the captain even deemed Skids' message worthy of passing it further up. Skids believed that the possibility of being court-matrtailed and then locked some autobot prison was the most plausible. Perhaps he'd be sent to Garrus 9. The thought of spending the rest of his life supervised by someone as ruthless in principles as Fortress Maximus made him slightly jittery.

He found some sort solace thinking that Getaway could get out of this without any more bad things happening to him. After all, Skids thought as he tried to imagine the situation from the autobot command's point of view, Getaway did nothing wrong except surviving. He beat the impossible odds and came out of Grindcore with valuable intel, a trophy and even a moderate fuel supply (he heard it was sent downwell after thorough examination and now was being rationed to the autobots; besides, Skids recognized the taste of energon in his daily portions). Really, Getaway wasn't at fault there.

Skids only wished he could see him at least one more time before their fate was to be decided.

Almost two weeks later a guard came to escort Skids to somewhere. Skids knew what was going to happen, and he was mildly surprised that the answer from high command came so quickly. The information flow delays during war were common, and he was almost prepared to stare at the grey ceiling for months, stewing in guilt and loneliness.

Well, that was good to end the waiting so quickly.

He was escorted to the captain's office. The captain seemed agitated, and Skids knew the reason behind it as soon as he noticed a comm link with holoprojection of Optimus Prime himself. In real time as well, no doubt.

Hope and dread mixed in even proportions in his fuel lines.

"Sir," he said to Prime as soon as the captain left, muttering something about minding his business.

Optimus Prime looked as iconic as ever, slightly tired, patient and noble.

"Hello, Skids. It's good to see you alive and well," Prime replied. The holoprojection was a little blurry, but Skids imagined that Prime's optics stopped at the patch on his chestplate. The autobot medics suggested to replace the plate completely, but Skids insisted to wait with that and not waste the supplies, and simply new patch would be enough. They couldn't have missed the shape of the wound underneath. Skids wondered if that was reported to Optimus Prime.

"Sir," Skids repeated, choking on the word. His thoughts were scattered, laced with panic, and he didn't know what to say.

"I don't have much time to talk, Skids. I have read the report about you and... you and Grindcore."

Skids lowered his head in shame, not daring to look up at Prime. Through the comm link, the disappointment in Prime's voice seemed to be multiplied tenfold.

"I have no excuse for the crimes I've committed, sir," Skids said, optics trained on the floor. "I will agree with whatever judgment that you or... or court-martial will decide."

A heavy sigh from Optimus Prime felt like a blow to his chassis.

"Skids," he said almost gently after a pause. "Your willingness to take the blame is saying a lot. The weight of your crimes is significant and is not to be overlooked."

Skids nodded. Garrus 9, then.

Prime went on:

"But as your friend, Skids, I am horrified of what you have been through. Being at mercy of Tarn is a punishment too cruel by itself." Skids dared looking up. Prime's masked face was unreadable. "And as a military leader, I can't allow your talents to go to waste in prison or, worse, be lost with your execution."

Skids was too shocked at the realization to hold back:

"Sir, but this is not right!"

Prime's heavy stare pinned him down, and he bit back whatever he wanted to say next.

"Yes. But so were many things that led you to be left in the situation where you ended."

Skids frowned at that, not understanding. What was so special about his circumstances that he was going to be pardoned for years of murder and torture and, he ought to admit, _treason_?

"Do you want to make amends?" Prime asked, voice hard, snapping Skids out of his shock.

"Yes, sir," he gulped, hyperventilating. "I do."

"You'll have a chance."

The wrongness of this conversation still bothered Skids. This hasty decision didn't match, as Prime correctly said, the weight of his crimes. There must have been proper investigation. Interrogations, maybe! And, in the end, court-martial that should have decided Skids' fate. Not the quick decision that his sins didn't matter for the sake of preserving war assets.

"If I may speak directly, sir," Skids said. Optimus Prime nodded, listening. "It seems like you have decided what to do with me before we spoke. I can't be _that_  valuable as an asset to simply dismiss my crimes. Sir."

Prime snorted. Or maybe that was some interference in the signal.

"You are correct, Skids. I have made up my mind before we talked," he admitted, and Skids felt furious. "But I wouldn't have made such decision without talking to you and seeing for myself that you fully realize the meaning of your actions."

"Sir, it's still-"

"As for the nature of decision itself," Prime raised his voice, not allowing to be interrupted, "you ought to thank your friend from Grindcore."

"My frie- Getaway?" Skids couldn't believe his audials. How could Getaway affect such decisions?

"Yes. He insisted that I speak with him first," Prime sounded almost amused. "He was quite passionate about convincing me to pardon your crimes. Also a little disrespectful. He reasoned that the escape wouldn't have been possible without your assist, and that otherwise there would have been no intel from Grindcore whatsoever."

Prime looked like he wanted to add something else, but refrained. Skids still processed the information he just heard, feeling his spark crushing from hope and disbelief.

"Anyway, his reasons were sound. We are planning already a long term operation to extract as many people from Grindcore as we can and then erase this place from the planet surface," Prime continued. "As for you," there was that hard, cold stare that chilled Skids' insides even through the comm link, "and your friend, Spec Ops have taken interest in such unusual success as yours. I'll give the order to transport you to a facility on a backwater world that serves as a base for the New Institute. You'll have plenty of time to recover and adjust to new assignments."

"Sir."

"We're out of time. Call the captain."

"Yes, sir." Skids wanted to cry. "Thank you, sir."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soorry i kinda rushed and haven't caught all mistakes maybe


End file.
